Red Wire began life in June 2005 by a group of Liverpool JMU graduates; having no money, contacts or equipment they found a half-demolished space on Victoria Street and got to work building an environment to work in - some very unsteady woodchip partitions gave enough room to accommodate 13 artists.

With the 2006 Liverpool Biennial approaching, Red Wire developed its activities and converted its space to hold a gallery to display studio member's works and subsequently to create opportunities for other artists to exhibit. During 2006 Red Wire hosted an ambitious schedule of four exhibitions in three months which provided a launching point for a continued exhibition programme.

A huge high for Red Wire was in 2008 by hosting works by Texan musician and artist Daniel Johnston, this drew people from across the country, especially to a riotous Johnston cover music night in our basement. In 2009 we exhibited a solo exhibition of collages by Half Japanese's Jad Fair, a first for the artist in the UK.

Red Wire has also showed scores of great younger artists across our 22 exhibitions, and we make a note of staying in touch with as many as possible. We have since redeveloped our space again to include more studio artists and to seek exhibitions in alternative galleries and spaces- an example being the Red Wire exhibition showing in The Lion Tavern for the 2010 Biennial.

Red Wire has always stuck to its guns on being totally grassroots and DIY and completely self funded. We find the pleasure and freedom of having no external ties liberating.

Outside of the gallery space we have produce a photocopied zine. Sporadic in its output, our zine was as recognisable as our gallery for a time, and gradually got bigger in both size and distribution. The zine held an open submission opportunity for local designers and drawers to submit an entry to be included; this echoed our yearly open submission exhibition programme. We are really pleased some of our newer members have taken it upon themselves to create a special 2010 Biennial edition.

As a reflection on the last 5 years, we haven't earned a penny - our rent covers the cost of the space, nothing else - It's a good feeling that holds a lot of integrity to look back and see a huge range of opportunities for so many people, created purely from a bit of hard graft.  Anything feels possible.

Thank you to everyone that has been involved, visited & exhibited.