The re:bourne event will happen on Sittingbourne High Street, but it's where on the high street that makes it interesting. Yes, there will be activities on the pavement and even in the streets; there will be nooks and crannies to explore, interesting things happening under carriageways, in churchyards. This is one of our goals with re:bourne--to find innovative and intriguing ways to bring alive places that, on a day to day basis, never get a second look.

But perhaps the most exciting type of space we're working with is even further off the proverbial beaten path. Due to the hard work of some friends at Swale Borough Council and the generosity of some private landlords, several re:bourne events will take place inside unused commercial spaces. You'll have to come along to find out which ones (and what will be happening), but we can guarantee that no one who enters these spaces will ever seem them again in quite the same way, regardless of their future as commercial units.

Loosely, this aspect of re:bourne connects with something called the slack space movement. Calling it a movement, though, is perhaps a bit grand. Rather, it is a fairly recent recognition by artists and civic and commercial leaders that something more interesting than boarding and hoarding can be done with commercial properties that remain unoccupied over long periods of time, an unfortunately frequent phenomenon in these recessionary times. A Guardian article late last year estimated that as many as 70,000 commercial units were to have become vacant last year. That's an awful lot of empty space. And when that space is smack in the middle of a high street, it tends to cast a pall over those businesses that are making a go of it.

Some slack space activities, like the Brixton Market, have become viable commercial activities in their own right. But more often, the creative or artistic use of these unused spaces is a temporary affair of mutual convenience: landlords like the positive attention, artists like the opportunity to have an interesting (and of course very public) space to work in. Is it an affair to remember? Come along to re:bourne next month and decide for yourself.