Championing Community And Student Creatives: The Return Of Ticket Inspector Collective

Izzie Malinowski and Sophie Myles are more than just collaborators. The two have been close friends since secondary school, sharing a passion for art, music, and the surrounding culture. Their first Ticket Inspector Collective exhibition, in October 2024, was a huge success. Now, they’re back with a showcase at Piehouse Coop, Deptford. Centred around a theme of ‘Fatigue/Vitality’, the evening promises to be one of innovation and celebration, geared towards student creatives and the amplification of their voices. Not only is this an important practice but it is also a deeply personal one - Sophie studies MA Photography at The Royal College of Art and Izzie is in her final year at UAL studying PR. We caught up with them to discuss their return, collaborative process and why this exhibition promises to be better than ever.

Image by Emily Henman

How will this exhibition differ from your last?

Sophie Myles: We know what we're doing now. We have more experience - we’ve narrowed down what we want to put into it and what we want others to take away. We want to evoke a sense of community, the feeling of meeting other creative people in an area and time in which it’s quite hard to simultaneously live and be creative. That’s what I'd like to happen. 


Izzie Malinowski: This time, we really wanted to improve upon the mistakes that we made last time. We really wanted to work on building relationships with the artists, and that meant being slightly more selective in the work that we pick. We also wanted to curate a larger amount of work from each artist, in order to get a broader idea of their work as a whole, instead of assigning only one piece per person.

The theme for your upcoming exhibition is Fatigue/Vitality - two contrasting words. 
Where did this theme come from and what does it mean to you?

SM: The contrast is very interesting. For me, the tension between fatigue and vitality is fascinating, especially the feeling of moving between rest and stress and back again. I think that uncertainty has a lot of potential to be play[ed] around with. It allows us as creators to have a large amount of art to look at, as well as the opportunity for artists to reinterpret what they've done in the past through the lens of their own lived experience. The feeling of going from bed to being on the tube in thirty seconds - that's good. It was quite personal to me when we were considering the theme. 

IM: It’s a very common feeling, wading through - either feeling exhausted or super motivated, and it made me want to know how other people's interpretations of that would look. 

SM: We talked a lot about the struggles in our own lives. At the time we met, my life felt like a mess and I was constantly shattered. I was very much aligned with the ‘fatigue’ part of our theme and I was imagining what me filled with vitality would look like. 

IM: That feeling of vitality is almost aspirational. We like to explore existential themes generally, which is something that we want to continue doing across all our exhibitions - that’s  what we find most interesting. 

Why did you choose Piehouse Coop in Deptford as the location for your exhibition and how does it align with your vision? 

SM: They’re a community interest company, which is amazing because it means that they're entirely focussed on giving back. It's a separate legal status - they are not for profit. Wonderfully, this allows them to put on events at a really affordable price. I visited a lot of different places around London, and they offer a great space and a stage for events that you otherwise wouldn't see. 
They've got really strong links with activism and the queer community, which is also lovely. I think it reflects our socially motivated ideals. 

IM: They are a not for profit, worker-run, wheelchair accessible music and arts venue. 
There aren’t many spaces in London that are not only versatile enough to host an exhibition and a music event, but also affordable enough for students to run the event. It makes places like Piehouse really, really special. It’s also a really interesting layout. It's in a railway arch, so the architecture is very dynamic with high ceilings and a lot of wall space. We're really excited to see what we can do with the space.

How do you strike a balance between being business partners and just really good friends? 

IM: It really depends on the week. This is something that I've thought about a lot, because sometimes when Sophie and I start working on this project, we can’t stop bringing it up and we do call a lot, and the problem is we'll try and just talk about regular things and we’ll end up saying "Oh, I just have one thing to say about the collective." Then it ends up being a business call. 


SM: Honestly I think it's tricky, because they merge into one. I think we manage it because we have a foundation of trust to build on. However, especially when we start to get stressed, it is difficult to draw the line because this is a very personal project and it requires so much time. It spills into everything. Luckily, we know each other very well. We’ve been friends for nine years now. We have something to go back to when we know that we’ve overstepped, such as when I got way too stressed at the first opening!

IM: I think we're really good at joking about things and also being able to set boundaries and criticise each other without anybody getting upset. It’s the kind of friendship where it doesn't really matter what you say, and it hasn't really caused us any problems so far.  After we finished the first event, I was really excited to talk to Sophie as just friends for a while. But then I missed organising it together… 

SM: It has its own joy in its own way.

IM: Now, we go out for drinks and we have purely non business affairs where we're actively not allowed to talk about business things, and we're only allowed to drink alcohol. 

SM: We try very hard to avoid bringing it up. Occasionally one of us will joke about it, but any more than that and it’s all we’ll discuss!


Image by Emily Henman

How did you choose the musicians who are performing, and how might they contribute to the evening?

IM: Another member of our collective is Lucas Hui, and he does a lot of band photography across London, so he recommended artists from South London. Both of us really enjoy the South London music scene. Generally when we're looking for artists, we end up looking for people that we've seen in person already or we go out to events and try and get a gauge of different bands that are performing. We try to select bands that will complement each other for the set list.

SM: It's lovely to go out into the community and find acts because it bypasses an algorithm that we all seem to be indebted to. It's really amazing to have that real experience and to find them very organically and not having to go on social media and essentially selling a little bit of your soul. 

IM: We've also had some amazing bands reach out to us that we'd love to include in future events. I just love live music, I think it’s what makes a night out so exciting. Art is an amazing thing to have a conversation about, but music really emphasises the emotions and that feeling of togetherness that you just can't get anywhere else. 

Do you have other art collectives or events that you take inspiration from?

SM:
 Not really, because I wanted it to feel like a singular experience. There were bits of exhibitions and shows I've been to, especially music and gigs, that influenced us because they model widely accessible art, breaking away from the confined nature of fine art galleries. That influences me in terms of merging the two [art and music]. I want to engage more people, because I love art and I want more people to love it with me. 

IM: I've been to a lot of different community events - everything from jazz to more general gigs, exhibitions and talks. Talking and meeting new people at those events is where I’ve received the most inspiration in my own personal life, and also to do my own event. 

SM: Izzie gathered most of the inspiration, because last year I was living in York and the art scene is very different. I found it hard to make certain connections, so Izzie did a lot of the groundwork and I was happy to help from afar. 

Following the exhibition, what's next for you both?

SM: I think what's next is another exhibition. We’ve really enjoyed doing them.
 It's great to see the community. Also, I think we now have momentum and know the lay of the land when it comes to these events. It’s so amazing to give people a chance to perform and show their work, especially in the weird times that we're living in. It’s a great outlet. 

IM: There are definitely many more themes that we want to explore and many more artists and musicians that we would like to showcase. If we can streamline the planning a bit more and start hosting events more regularly, that would be the dream. 

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Edited by Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson, Editor-in-Chief