Turning BAC the clock: Battersea Arts Centre hits 30 – in pictures

Battersea Arts Centre’s first artistic director, Jude Kelly, welcomes Princess Diana to open Studio 1 in 1985 Photograph: BAC

This is the Groovers Steel Band outside BAC in the early 1980s. BAC was created by the local community who protested to keep the former town hall in public use. Inscribed in the Lower Hall is Battersea’s 150-year-old motto 'Not for me, not for you, but for us'
Photograph: BAC

My Sex, Our Dance, DV8 Physical Theatre, 1986. Performers Lloyd Newson and Nigel Charnock BAC’s artistic legacy from the 1980s includes the likes of Cheek By Jowl, The Right Size, The Featherstonehaughs, Major Road and DV8 (pictured), who, like so many other innovative British theatre companies of the last 30 years, received their first commission and development support at BAC
Photograph: Eleni Leoussi

This is Faulty Optic’s Darwin’s Dead Herring in 1992. Throughout the 1990s, BAC forged its reputation as a generator of innovative new theatre, with companies such as Faulty Optic, Improbable Theatre, Complicite, Told By An Idiot and Frantic Assembly creating work in-house
Photograph: BAC

Many of the UK’s leading comedians also road-tested their ideas at BAC, including French & Saunders, Harry Hill, Lee Evans, Paul Merton, The League of Gentlemen, and Matt Lucas, pictured, who also appeared with David Walliams at BAC
Photograph: BAC

Tango and Crash, Jeremy Robins and Lindsey Butcher, 1997, British Festival of Visual Theatre. Jeremy Robins and Lindsey Butcher in Tango and Crash for the British Festival of Visual Theatre, one of many seasons and festivals devised here by Tom Morris, artistic director of BAC from 1996 to 2004
Photograph: Sam Mahayni

Actor Wills Morgan plays Diaper Man in Jerry Springer the Opera. The show was developed through BAC's Scratch programme, in which audiences offer feedback to artists about their developing ideas Photograph: HO/Reuters

Masque of the Red Death, Punchdrunk, 2007-2008 This is Punchdrunk and BAC’s Masque of the Red Death that occupied the entire town hall in 2007-8. The production launched BAC’s Playground Projects in partnership with Haworth Tompkins Architects, developing spaces in the building through artist-led experiments, each leaving a legacy for the future
Photograph: Stephen Dobbie

Once and For All, Ontroerend Goed, 2008/2009 In 2008 and 2009, BAC presented Once and For All ... created by Ontroerend Goed with young people from the Kopergietery performing arts centre in Ghent. The company were the first to create in-house artists' bedrooms at BAC. One-on-One Festival in April 2011 will include a series of one-on-one performances in bedrooms designed and inhabited by artists
Photograph: Phile Deprez

1927's The Animals and Children Took to the Streets was developed here in 2010. BAC’s new artistic model is based on year-round artist residencies, showcasing new ideas every Thursday to Saturday, with three large-scale presentations transforming the building every year
Photograph: 1927

The Red Shoes at Kneehigh Theatre, 2000/2010/2011 BAC celebrates its 30th birthday with a show, The Red Shoes, by long-time collaborator Kneehigh theatre. BAC is also holding a 30th birthday party on 24 March to raise funds for the artists' bedrooms
Photograph: Steve Tanner