noun: Intercession – mediation, arbitration, negotiation, intervention, plea, advocacy, agency solicitation, good offices

Even during building works, Battersea Arts Centre has never stopped fulfilling civic functions as well as creative ones, but now spaces front and rear are opening up there is intercession, an expression coined by architect Steve Tompkins.

Jubb explains, "for 120 years this has been a place where people have got married, seen gigs, voted, watched shows and attended meetings—imagine all the people who might meet in this building in its new form.

"People suddenly connect; artists start to work with brides and grooms, or artists start to work with people working in the criminal justice system who come to [creative learning] events here. intercession."

Both intercession and Playgrounding are visible in the venue's new season, Moving Museum—London Stories Made by Migrants.

The Moving Museum concept reworks the conventional linear museum experience of seeing an object, reading the interpretative caption, moving on and doing the same again and again, until the dots join up and perhaps a connection can be made.

The emotional connection comes first with London Stories Made by Migrants in which a first or later generation migrant, asylum seeker or refugee will tell their personal story to an audience of six people who will journey together as a group of strangers between the locations of their storytellers.

It sounds unsettlingly and attractively intimate.

The linking of the spaces that make this format possible forms part of the works that also saw the whole building become fully accessible and the creation of a learning hub for workshops, courses and start–up enterprises.

Press and Communications Manager, Olivia Ivens: "all the spaces, be they corridors, the new toilets, or even our new lifts, have the ability to be transformed into performance spaces.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they have technical infrastructure, just that we release them over to artists and say 'make with it what you will'."

If that sounds small scale, never mind: Sailing By directed by Tom Morris (in 2000) was a four-minute two–hander played out on the stairs. Size didn’t matter then and it doesn't now, and pushing at boundaries continues to be welcome.

In the footsteps of the Pankhursts came Alan Ginsburg and Jerry Spinger the Opera. Boundaries, like walls, are made to be moved.

Central to the last phase of building works was reclamation of the original lightwell area for use as a courtyard performance space.

It has a capacity of around 90 located on two levels; above the gallery, there is a stunning, decked roof–level area not yet put to use, though it will be.

The inaugural production in the Courtyard was Victorian tale of love and villainy, Extravaganza Macabre, told by Little Bulb Theatre.

Running through the summer, the musical melodrama played in mostly natural light with a backdrop of the Courtyard's differently weathered surfaces, original red brick and new white tiled walls.

The Courtyard is a précis of Battersea Arts Centre.

Look through a door one way and you can see an archway that once would have been outside. Look though a window another way and see a modern corridor.

Look up to the un–chartered third level and down to the trap doors from which surprises spring.

As David Jubb said "it's about being honest about what the space is, being honest about the changes and also about the changes over the years that have happened to the changes."

Moving Museum – London Stories Made by Migrants is presented by BAC Moving Museum. It runs from 4 to 26 November.

Age Recommendation is 14 years and over; part of the London Stories experience is meeting people you don’t know so you may be separated from those you book with. Running Time is 90 minutes.

A new series of building tours starts next year. Tours will be led by volunteers with long-standing relationships with the building. E-mail enquiries or look online for more information about its history.

Further information about hire arrangements for private or corporate events may be found online and enquiries may be made by e-mail.

Not all areas of the building are currently open to the public following the fire at Battersea Arts Centre in 2015.