Since 1968, it has provided cheap studios in 14 buildings, mainly in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, housing around 280 artists There are hundreds more on the waiting list. As a charity, it benefits from an 80 per cent reduction in business rates, which means relatively cheap accommodation."The buildings are there but people can't afford them," says the studios' manager Fiona Furness. "A decline in the art market and art teaching jobs is affecting the development of artists. People have to work full time to pay for a flat and on a smaller, cheaper, studio which they can then only work in at weekends."Most tyro artists put their skills to use in paid work as painters and decorators, building or carpentry, but bar jobs and cycle courier work are equally popular - wherever payment is cash in hand, in fact. Ms Furness says that those with privileged backgrounds or generous partners find it easiest to manage."Marry well," she jokes.Other European countries are more systematic in their support. Antje Siebrecht, a German painter living in London, has experienced both systems. In Germany, the state supports a series of "art houses" - independent postgraduate studios - as well as housing artists in empty historic properties.

However, the artists' work is vetted, which Siebrecht believes can be restricting."Here, the rent problem is enormous, but there is a wider horizon to people's work. In Germany, the concept of your work is important in being accepted."A 20-minute bus ride from Shoreditch and we are in deepest Hackney looking at two Space studios In a decaying Victorian piano factory. Helen is none too impressed with the first, where a partition is being built, dividing a long room into smaller, cheaper pounds 50 per week studios: "The whole room would have been great, but the ceiling is too low and a box is uninspiring. The narrow corridor would make it difficult to get large pieces in and out."The next looks more promising: a high clear space with whitewashed brick walls and arching iron windows A dark room has been built at one end. Helen is considering the possibility of sharing the rent with a photographer friend. She has a clear idea of what's she's looking for, however.This time the room does not have a neutral enough character "and could unduly influence my work".

More prosaically, sharing an unventilated studio is a problem: Helen uses resin Resin has highly toxic fumes. And, as a woman, she is concerned about being alone late at night in a dodgy area which is a long, dark and expensive journey from her Kennington housing co-operative.One answer would be living and working under one roof with only one rent to pay. The charity ACME, founded in 1972, used to provide living/ working space in short-life housing, including the thriving community of artists in Beck Road, Hackney - Coronation Street with more Bohemian characters. Generous housing repair grants and individual Arts Council studio conversion grants (now discontinued) made it all possible. But with the GLC gone and the Eighties property boom, ACME has had to hand back nearly all its houses to their public sector owners and recently, like Space, has concentrated on supplying low-rent studios.With ACME's help, Turner Prize-winning sculptor Richard Deacon found his own studio after graduating in 1977: "When I got the space, the Arts Council provided individual studio conversion grants. These disappeared in the Eighties - which has been tough on young artists starting out. Of course, I had to work as well - nobody is asking for a free ride."Increasingly, people say they cannot afford anything and are having to let spaces go," says Mikey Cuddihy, an artist liaison officer at ACME and a long-term Beck Road resident herself "One way forward is to think again about life/work space.