Chapter 8: Woking

WELCOME TO THE LIGHTBOX
By Greg Freeman

In September this year a startling addition to Woking's physical and cultural landscape will throw open its doors to the public, with the completion of the Lightbox building, a combined art gallery and local history museum, beside the Basingstoke canal.

The Lightbox, with an exterior of exciting tiles and timber cladding that is likely to look spectacular at night, promises to offer something for everyone in the community. It will be free to enter, whether to just have a coffee and meet up with people, or to spend time looking around the galleries. Inside there will be local and regional art as well as a travelling exhibition. The history gallery will include listening posts to hear the voices of Woking's people and their memories of everyday life. The main gallery will host a large exhibition, the smaller gallery will have a variety of exhibitions that change every two months, and there will be temporary exhibitions in the circulation areas. The only charges will be for the special blockbuster exhibitions, and there will be various concessions available. The first major exhibition will be a look behind the scenes of Wallace and Gromit, just the kind of thing to bring in families and school parties and get the project off to an accessible start.

To this writer, it all sounds rather marvellous. Yet in certain quarters the reaction to the coming of the Lightbox has been curmudgeonly, to say the least. Even before it has opened, it has provoked a debate in this usually sedate Surrey town that has been surprising in its intensity and ferocity. The discussion - some might call it a war of words - has taken place principally in the letters columns of the local newspaper, the News and Mail, and in the Woking Forum, the message board on Woking borough council's website. Those against it have argued in extremely forceful terms that the Lightbox has been foisted on residents without their consent, that it will prove a financial burden for the council and council taxpayers, that the building itself is an eyesore - one News and Mail correspondent dubbed it the Shoebox - and that Woking simply does not need its own art gallery when it is so close to London's myriad cultural opportunities, just a 27-minute train ride away. To pretend otherwise is vainglorious posturing, they say.

On the other hand, those for the Lightbox argue that such critics should open their minds to the possibilities and potential of the new building, that Woking needs strikingly different and modern architecture to give it a sense of identity amid the generally grey appearance of its numerous office blocks - and, anyway, why should residents have to go up to town so often, when they can have an exhibition space on their own doorstep?

Approaching Woking from almost any direction, you come upon a rather chaotic confusion of office blocks, before you arrive at the Lightbox. Its more straightforward form and dazzling tiles is a marked contrast to what has gone before. The architectural compromise between the tiles and the more staid timber cladding on the canal side is unfortunate, in this writer's view, but perhaps inevitable, given the climate of conservatism within the town.

As for accusations of elitism that have been aimed at its direction by the more blimpish of its critics, the director of the Lightbox, Marilyn Scott, has this to say: "We have had more than 200 volunteers sign up for our induction and training programme to help us in manning the building - that's without any recruitment drive. Many of these people have been involved in previous events with us and thankfully come from all walks of life. If it was in any way elitist, I don't think we would have enjoyed their support for so long."

She adds: "The Lightbox has always had the community at its heart and we continue to work with all sorts of groups including schools on a variety of programmes at locations held around the town. These will continue in our building with a packed events and education programme with something for all ages and interests. Every weekend the Art Cart, packed with artists' materials, will be available for people to go along and use, free of charge."

Maybe the Lightbox won't on its own put Woking "on the map", as some enthusiast over-excitedly put it a few months ago while engaged in debate with its detractors on the council website (all right, that was me). But I do hope and believe that it will form a significant part of the town's continuing evolution and give it a sense of identity and community - and, while we're at it, pride and bounce - which it has been crying out for.

Meet you for a cup of coffee at the Lightbox, sometime in late September? Mark it in your diary now.

Greg Freeman, 2007.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the writer's personal view and do not necessarily represent the collective opinion of Woking Writers' Circle.