‘StuSu’ is the Airbnb for renting studio space

Let’s say you’re a Brooklyn-based painter with a studio in Bushwick. The 300 square foot space receives excellent natural light, which is essential for your practice; it is located a few blocks from the subway; and neighboring units are used by other artists, who don’t mind you streaming music at all hours of the night. It’s an ideal scenario. That is, until you start yearning for a change of scenery. Then what ?

A few years ago, the Berlin artist Ralf Derich found himself in a similar situation. His studio in Neukölln was like a second home, but he wanted to travel and create elsewhere. He wanted to sublet his own space and find another one overseas, but soon realized that was easier said than done: there wasn’t a single website or only app that seamlessly facilitated such sublets. He turned to a friend from art school, Melina Volkmann, and asked her: why wasn’t there already a service like this, a kind of Airbnb for artists?

This conversation led to stusu— a portmanteau of “studio” and “sublease,” of course — that Dereich and Volkmann launched in early 2016, touting it as “the world’s first platform where artists can sublet their studios.” In collaboration with web developer Sebastian Kempf and chart designate Tobias Tilgnerthey have created a website that brings together information on available studio spaces and ultimately makes it easier for artists to seek inspiration overseas and create work in cities beyond their hometown.

“Before stusu existed, most artist studio sublets were advertised on ‘free listing pages,'” Volkmann says, referring to websites like Craigslist, where sublet pages Workshop rentals are grouped together with various other types of sublettings. “We wanted to improve that status, with the values ​​of a community market, values ​​like trust and certainty.”

An important earlier initiative in this area is the Advertisement Projectlaunched by Stephanie Diamond in 2003, which helps artists and other creatives find and list studios, homes and workspaces in over 70 countries, via a weekly newsletter.

Stusu, on the other hand, is a “hybrid of classic announcements page and member community model,” Volkmann explains. The site fosters a virtual community of artists who can connect to help each other find spaces that will support their artistic practices, spaces that foster productivity and creativity.

Stusu can be used to speed up simple sublettings – where one artist rents another’s studio for several days, weeks or months – but also to fill shared workspaces, and even to organize studio exchanges between artists . For the time being, the use of the site is free for all parties concerned. The founders are currently planning a Kickstarter campaign (scheduled to launch on September 1) to keep the site running and raise the funds needed to expand the functionality of a commission-based model.

Those looking to find a temporary studio can log into stusu, enter the city and desired dates, then scroll through listings and an interactive map, an interface that will be familiar to Airbnb users. But, rather than the number of rooms, stusu users can filter searches by price per day, shared or private spaces, and square footage.

To list a studio on stusu, landlords create a profile and listing, add images and a description of their space, and set their own prices and minimum rental length. The site administrators (Dereich and Volkmann) verify the quality and clarity of the listings, ensuring that these spaces are in fact suitable for artistic creation. There are currently some 340 studios listed on the site, from Brooklyn to Bangkok, representing a huge range of affordability and amenities.

Volkmann notes that stusu is aware of the individual needs of artists and therefore aims to represent a variety of flexible spaces, rather than being limited to the classical and traditional concept of an artist’s studio – four walls, high ceilings, large Windows.

The site also covers a wide geographic expanse, especially given the modest number of studios on the site. While the founders have made concerted efforts to develop a presence in New York and Berlin (each city has over 100 studios listed), a plethora of cities are represented on the site, from Chicago to Cape Town, from São Paulo to Singapore. .

In New York currently, for example, you can find anything from a 75 square foot shared space in Industry City for $308 per month, in a 475 square foot private apartment photography studio in the West Village for $530 per day. In Berlin, options range from an office in a shared studio in Neukölln for less than $5 a day for 90 days, in a spacious, sunny, 1,450 square foot studio in Friedrichshain which can be used for film shoots, photo shoots, workshops or castings, for around $470 per day.

Meanwhile, in Cape Town, an artist can hire a 323 square foot space at a company’s premises for approximately $303 per month. For those traveling to São Paulo, there is a 130 square foot studio on the 22nd floor of Oscar Niemeyer’s famous Copan building for $35 a day. In Singapore, there is a homestay artist available, including a 430 square foot space for $71 per day. And for someone looking for spiritual inspiration in nature, in a Polish village about thirty meters from Krakow, there is a 409 square foot yurt (a circular Mongolian tent) at €25 per day.

Volkmann emphasizes the community and artistic nature of the site, which she and Dereich developed through first-hand experience. “Most of our feedback comes from artists, who immediately see the purpose and value of our website,” she says. “Stusu is an initiative of artists, for artists.

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