Live on the Drive

Live on the Drive

Live on the Drive
2016

 

A Performance Project for girls aged 15-19,  led by performance artist Katy Baird and visual artist Rebecca Lindsay – Addy at the drawing shed’s project space, LockUpNumber11, on the Drive housing estate E17.

Now with NEW Blog! Documenting the exciting Live Art created by the LoT-D girls and more!

Live on the Drive (LoT-D) has been running since September 2016 and is a series of live art workshops, discussions and visits to live events. These workshops focus around discussions and creations of Live Art, and all this encompasses, including visual elements and using this to extend ideas of performance . The workshops have taken place in a range of contexts including the estate, public events such as the Women’s March, and even at Walthamstow School for Girls helping to introduce Year 10s to the project and Live Art. The LoT-D girls work collaboratively and individually to generate artwork in new and exciting ways. The LoT-D girls are at the centre of the project, including passing on their experiences and new found skills to other girls.

live-on-the-drive-poster_final

“I learnt to think about the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ and not just the ‘what’.”

“I loved it; it was a really different environment.”

“It was strange in a good way.” “I have an interest in performance art now and feel more confident about performing in front of other girls.”

Feedback from participants, November 2016

Some[w]Here Now – Pump House Gallery

Some[w]Here Now – Pump House Gallery

Some[w]Here Now – Pump House Gallery
2015

somewhere image

www.somewhereresearch.wordpress.com

Some[w]Here Now invites artists, local people, and others interested to join the drawing shed for open conversations at Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park, exploring how artists may work collaboratively, with ‘local’ communities and in ‘public’ places, in the context of Now.Co-hosted by a collection of artists, local residents, critical theorists, architects, activists, public and mental health professionals, THE DAY OF SMALL CONVERSATIONS invites participants to talk openly about ideas of ‘social responsibility’ in regards to collaborative making and to collectively question the role of contemporary artists within opposing cultures of resilience, resistance and regeneration.
The frame will be set by the drawing shed‘s playful and critically informed Some[w]Here contemporary arts project over three housing estates in Nine Elms, and will feature video documentation, materials and research gathered over the past nine months of the project. The estates – known locally as ‘the island’ – are situated in the shadow of the Battersea Power Station Development, London SW8 close to the gallery; an area that throws into question the very meaning of public space and value of community in our contemporary society.
THE DAY OF SMALL CONVERSATIONS will be co-hosted by a number of artists and thinkers, including Sally LabernBobby LloydJordan McKenzieBarby AsanteDaniella Valz GenProfessor Adrian RentonCara CourageDr. Debra Benita ShawShahed SaleemDr Chris Wood, and Lois Keidan and Katy Baird (Live Art Development Agency). The days agenda will then be shaped by all of the voices in the room, with conversations passing between small groups throughout, looking towards future possible projects, shared actions, and collaborations. Please bring thoughts, questions, agendas and an openness to unpick.

 Amidst these conversations there will be a large communal picnic lunch provided in the park and a drinks reception at the end of the day for further conversation and informal networking. the drawing shed will also launch the Some[w]Here publication:  Manual for Possible Projects on the Horizon.

Pump House Gallery is wheelchair accessible on the ground floor only. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss access requirements.

For more information, please email: thedrawingshed.projects@gmail.com 

Mary Osborn   07792292605

THE SOAPBOX ARTS LAB

6 – 8 June | 11am – 5pm
Pump House Gallery

Some[w]Here Now – THE DAY OF SMALL CONVERSATIONS follows the drawing shed’s The SoapBox Arts Lab taking place at the gallery in the three days preceding. Here the artists will be taking over the gallery for individual and collaborative making of mobile soapbox structures. These will further be used as a platform for conversations on June 9. The SoapBox Arts Lab is free; please turn up on the day to join in, or email for further information.

PHG_logo-1the drawing shed logo copy 2

PrintWandsworth logo current copy

Live Else [W]Here LUNCH

Live Else [W]Here LUNCH

Live Else [W]Here LUNCH

For LiveElse[W]here, and at intervals throughout May 2014, artists Leena Chauhan and Pablo Perezzerate worked in residence in our project space LockUpNumber11, alongside artist Jordan McKenzie as co-curator – engaging residents across different spaces in sound, film, drawing, tailored-made performance in people’s homes and print. In parallel, several residents took up residency in LockUpNumber11 as a space to develop their own work and creative ideas.

LiveElse[W]here culminated in our LIVE LUNCH on May 31st, 12-3pm, during which Pablo prepared and shared Mexican food while simultaneously sharing family stories and memories, and Leena cooked Kenyan/Indian style food with her very own Mama. Attended by artists, curators, commissioners, local residents, and members of the public exploring the E17 Art Trail, LIVE LUNCH was also a space for seeing some of the work made by the artists involved in LiveElse[W]here, acting as a springboard for discussing the value of performance and visual artists working on estates such as those on which our project takes place in E17.

Feedback from a participant on the day: “When I walked down The Drive in Walthamstow yesterday afternoon after a lengthy drive of another nature, I knew from first glance how worthwhile it had been to be stuck in traffic from the scene that I was to become a part of in the coming moments. There was artistry not just in the wonderful array of colours decorating the area, but in the cohesion of colour and style of people coming together in exactly the way that I would have hoped, as an informal artist’s assistant connected with the work being produced by the drawing shed group, resident artists of this community.

Grey pillars were decorated with crimson tape, mounted with coloured lines from which hung dazzlingly produced prints in eye-catching hues, and covering the signs issuing commands to the residents about prohibitions, were prints of clothing labels from all over the world, that were worn by local residents, to draw attention to how much diversity was gathered in this small area. Fate could not have produced a more perfect day for the occasion. A lovely, warm, slightly breezy day compounded the warmth that I felt from people of various origins, artists and residents, people of advanced ages, people young and carefree enough to seemingly live effortlessly in the moment, people of all ages in-between, relaxing together after sharing a lunch that was a culmination of interactions on the estate for this project.

There is a world of art that is glitzy and commercial, that perhaps at times makes a deliberate effort to “be more accessible” that I personally feel somewhat alienated from. The artwork of this project, with which I was engaging today, was so much more than the money-making highly commercial stuff. It was real. It was meaningful to me. Pardon my wide-eyed lyrical reflections, but they are induced only because I find this so rare: it really touched me. I’m writing this partly just to capture, in the way I prefer, something of the experience, for my journal, and partly as a simple act of appreciation that I wish to share with the organisers and artists responsible for what I came to enjoy so thoroughly yesterday afternoon. So, the drawing shed with Bobby, Sally, Jordan, Pablo, Angelique, Esther, Jayne and Will and last and for me personally definitely not least, Leena: thank you, and may there be more of a similar nature to come, and take pleasure from.”

Amy Wevill from the E17 Art Trail also joined us for the LIVE LUNCH – read her blog piece here

Some[w]Here Research

Some[w]Here Research

Some[w]Here Research – 9 ELMS – Wandsworth

thedrawingshed.SomeWhereNow

www.somewhereresearch.wordpress.com

the drawing shed’s new project Some[w]Here Research is underway, opening up new imaginative spaces through engaging residents across the Wandsworth estates of Patmore, Savona and Carey Gardens.

Together with performance artists Jordan McKenzie and Daniella Valz Gen and designer-makers George Williams and Nozomi Nakabayashi, the drawing shed will be working in and between the three estates’ public spaces, activating these outdoor spaces within and across the estates through the visible process of making a series of mobile structures. Exploring the history of the area, including the old soap box factories and go-kart culture, and learning from older people living on the estates Some[w]Here will explore the platforms from which stories are told and conversations take place across the estates, cultures and generations, with the PROJECT BLOG – www.somewhereresearch.wordpress.com – providing further space for residents to share and explore old memories and new ideas. Rethinking, reworking, reusing, retelling, remaking.

9elms03.webSurveying the scene on Thessaly Road

9elms6.webBeautiful garden path on Savona

9elms7.webWhose in goal on a sunny afternoon

9elms13.web9elms08.webOut and about – all things mobile

9elms09.webOver the wall to Covent Garden Market

9elms11.webWatching Battersea Power Station changing before their eyes

#BasicSeven7

#BasicSeven7

#BasicSeven7

#BasicSeven7 is an ongoing project for co-lead artists Sally Labern and Bobby Lloyd of the drawing shed and was originally funded by London Borough of Waltham Forest, Hoe St Ward Funding alongside the UCL Bartlett Wild Screens research project (see below) which allowed us to extend and deepen the use of social media as a creative tool, holding complicated conversations around the issues of work, mental health and housing, inviting personal and network responses to questions of responsibility for homelessness.

the drawing shed artists fed into project engagement through their historical experience and community contact with people living on and off the streets in Leytonstone, in Hoe Street, Waltham Forest and in Camden – so as to ask the following questions:

• Can the situated screen and online social media (twitter) and Instagram be of any relevance to particular challenges such as a community discourse on street homelessness?

• Does the use of Instagram and other Social Media as a creative tool allow the drawing shed artists to synthesise and transmit ideas related to their own critical practice and engage a wider audience as participants in major debates of our time?

http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/graduate/screens-in-the-wild/Artists-in-Residence

HOMELESSNESS

Under the banner of Irregular Stage, the drawing shed  worked on two projects in London in relation to homelessness:

• Irregular Bulletin was a 6 month residency at Arlington House in Camden, with Space and One Housing, using the drawing shed’s mobile PrintBike alongside the Social media tools Twitter/Instagram with long/short stay residents, January-July 2013;

this is linked and feeds into/is fed by:

• Basic Seven#7 which took place in E17 in Waltham Forest as a series of critical and inclusive arts events/workshops/exhibitions and encounters on the theme of ‘homelessness, housing, mental health and work’, February 2013 to January 2014

many joined the conversation:

#homeless   #sitw @wordinthehand @wildscreens

the drawing shed tested out these questions initially  during March in the following four locations:

·       Tuesday 5th March 1.00pm – 4.00pm –  Streets of Leytonstone E11

·       Tuesday 12th March 9.30pm – 12.30pm –  Soup Kitchen and homeless hostel, Walthamstow,         E17

·       Wednesday 13th March 10.00pm – 1.00pm –  Islington, N1, we proposed to work alongside a         long-term Arlington House resident selling The Big Issue but inclement weather deferred.    

·       Tuesday 19th March 1.00pm – 4.00pm  –   Streets of Leytonstone E11

We continue to work on this project and earlier in 2014, we attended a day of presentations and discussion involving many partners across London, led by the Christian Kitchen, a group local to E17 who run the soup kitchen whose pitch in the centre of Walthamstow and remit to support both hungry and homeless families, was being challenged by the Local Authority. Stella Creasy MP joined the debate.

PEOPLELIKEUS

PEOPLELIKEUS

PEOPLELIKEUS, A LIVE TWITTER PERFORMANCE, 2012

The PeopleLikeUs Collective led its first Live Twitter Performance as part of the E17 Art Trail in September 2012. This public Twitter writing performance has further extended this space beyond the estates and into the ether where others were able to join the PeopleLikeUs Collective in writing to the hash-tag #bestow during the recent E17 Art Trail, September 2012. See our Blog During Spring and Summer 2012, the drawing shed @WordintheHand worked with writers Jacob Sam- La Rose and Dorothy Fryd on a Twitter live art writing project PeopleLikeUs, with residents of Attlee Terrace, The Drive and Hoe St in E17.the drawing shed’s interest in using Twitter for Live writing and Open Performance is in pushing the creative boundaries of dialogical art practice led by artists in both public and community spaces, exploring innovative ways to connect communities and to build virtual relationships; The value of difference and cultural values exposed and in creative collision, has become the material fabric of a rising and responsive Community of the Imagination.

Over the spring and summer of 2012 the PeopleLikeUs Collective met regularly to write together and use Twitter as a creative space to explore, share and riff off each other in the ether.

In collaboration with the E17 Art Trail Poetry Trail organisers, we warmly welcomed everyone with Twitter on their mobile phone to join us on Sunday 2nd September, with Jacob Sam-La Rose, in a Live performance during the E17 Art Trail. On the streets of Attlee Terrace , The Drive and the Hoe Street Ward  and using the 140 characters of Twitter, we wrote on the hashtag #Bestow to embrace The E17 Art Trails Poetry Trail. Participants needed to have Twitter on their mobile phone to join us in this collaborative writing project. A full briefing  at 2pm at garage number 11, Fanshaw House, The Drive, E17 3BY was given to all participants. No previous experience of using Twitter in this way was needed, though the basics of Twitter and a Twitter name were.

At the end of the performance at 4pm, tea, flapjacks and scones were served courtesy of “…Ask Freda”, a local residents’ community group, at garage number 11, Fanshaw House, The Drive, E17 3BY.

TO TWEET:

1 – Set up a Twitter Account, Click Here

2 – Download on your mobile the Twitter App (For info about Twitter for Android Click Here, for info about Twitter for iPhone Click Here)

3 – Tweet under the hashtag #bestow

4 – Alway leave a single ‘space’ before and after #bestow or it will not be picked up within the group of Tweets and your contribution will be invisible to all of us!

5 – To read the stream of #bestow tweets, click on the hashtag #bestow

 

DOHA FOUND OBJECTS PROJECT, 2011

DOHA FOUND OBJECTS PROJECT, 2011

DOHA FOUND OBJECTS PROJECT, 2011

SADAA / FRAMEWORK IN CONTEXT:

‘Sadaa Thakerat al Makan’ is an Artist-led Arts Project Proposal, delivered by Sally Labern and Bobby Lloyd of the drawing shed following a site visit to Doha in January 2011. It begins with the Collection of the found objects taken from the demolition of existing buildings – homes, businesses and social spaces from the Musheireb, Qatar’s earliest suburb (1951) – to make way for a new sustainable architecture at the heart of Doha (2015). The most recent residents being the migrant workers who make up the majority of Qatar’s population, who have been moved out to develop the Musheireb. In response to this ‘In between Space’ that has been thrown up as the present communities move out, Labern+Lloyd began a dialogue about ‘How Newness Enters the World’ – to reflect this cultural regeneration – as future ‘culturally sensitive’ (” middle eastern”) community spaces in the city’s Musheireb are created almost in front of their eyes.

In recognition of the lack of residential status of the migrant communities, whose presence is imperative to the Qatari ruling class for the servicing and development of the richest state in the world, Labern+Lloyd wanted to work both with the uncertainness of identity that comes from the both the assumed birth right of the ruling elite and the lack of rights of the migrant population: without equal human rights, there is no recognition of the value of diversity within a nation however rich it may be, and no space for cultural identity to develop or differences to be celebrated or recognised. The proposal of an international residency programme alongside the development of a mobile artists’ studio came out of the visit; it is ideologically different in context and intent, to the externally perceived current Qatari project of collecting and curating ‘Contemporary Middle Eastern Art’ from across the region as a means of constructing and underpinning a national arab identity for Qatar.

In the context of the new Musheireb development in the city of Doha and complementing the newly launched Mathaf, The Islamic Art Museum, The Knowledge Enrichment Centre, the proposed Cultural Forum and so on, a rigorous piece of work took place in partnership with the drawing shed during the four day site visit in January, and begun a year a half ago as an idea proposed by Isaa Al Mohannadi. The summary of this proposal is for a project with a discrete identity that feeds into, interfaces with and would take its own part in underpinning the overall Musheireb Art Strategy for Doha.

The  Artist-led Arts project sets out, at its heart, to foster and develop dialogue between the diverse communities of Doha in recognition of its migrant nature. It suggests that using the potency and inspiration of the found ‘objects’∗as a rich resource, the Project will support, reinterpret and create both a new ‘architecture’, metaphorically (and influence physically), and art works that are poetic, contemporary and questioning – where the porosity of territory, time, memory and identity are explored through art making and participation by the whole Doha ‘community’.

Where the rush of nostalgia and construct would flood in, artists could instead bring big questions to the most potent and the most (seemingly) trivial objects, poetic interpretations, decoding, ideological challenge, imaginative friction and new meanings, reflecting sentiment and not sentimentality. These would be ‘transmitted’, passed along if you like, into public spaces, with an intention of creating mostly temporary art works in public spaces, community spaces, and by doing this, keeping the conversation open …. this report was of course written before the Arab revolutions across the Middle East and in this sense the agenda for many has shifted dramatically, though perhaps not for Qatar as yet.

Read the project’s report: THE DRAWING SHED FOUND OBJECTS REPORT_PROPOSAL

SOME[W]HERE

SOME[W]HERE

SOME[W]HERE

https://somewhereresearch.wordpress.com

Rethinking, reworking, reusing, retelling, remaking

the drawing shed worked on a project Some[w]Here  on the three housing estates Patmore, Savona and Carey Gardens in Nine Elms, London referred to locally as ‘the island’, the land-locked social housing area opposite the now infamous Battersea Power Station site, with the new American Embassy being built on its flank, to be surrounded by an insulated, ‘double skinned’ layer of privately owned flats for a new richer community.

Our project Some[w]Here explored through the metaphor of the Go Cart and the Soap Box, both migration and the fluctuating gifts of memory in relation to early street play (imagination, resilience, survivability) and the first days of work (alienation) for current residents who have come to live in the area from all over the world.

It was this critical friction of an artist-directed discourse between older estate residents, men and women of 68 – 98 years, that informed the content of the work: contemporary go cart inspired objects and mobile Soap Boxes, built on the streets with architect-makers George Williams and Nozomi Nakabayashi whilst live/performance artists Jordan McKenzie and Daniella Valz Gen made provocative interventions, and we as lead artists created quieter works as individuals triggered by this multi-layered approach and the ‘unfixed’ organic methodologies of the collaborative works we make.

Both this very accessible ‘public’ work and the disruption of the streets created the rupture in dominant ideas that flowed into these quieter individual responses. In this liminal space, and in the case of Nine Elms, a physical in-between space too of an echo chamber within which we found a ‘Point of Resonance’,  creating performative and film-based works as individual artists – like the project’s poetic body piercing.

BLACK LIGHT AT TATE MODERN

BLACK LIGHT AT TATE MODERN

BLACK LIGHT AT TATE MODERN

Artists Labern&Lloyd “trace the curve of the sun’s rays as they just graze the surface” (James Maxwell, Physicist)

What does society keep in the dark, and how can it be illuminated? Labern&Lloyd of the drawing shed, working at Tate Modern as The Light Collectors, collaborated with scientists hosted by The Institute of Physics in November 2015. Together they invited the public to engage in an afternoon of Black Light, with open conversation and research. Hundreds of people throughout the day took part in an ongoing dialogue with top physicists and astro biologists about the science and politics of light.

Framed by an installation drawn from the artists’ ongoing research into the hidden at this critical point in history, ultraviolet light revealed the disjuncture between extra-ordinary scientific explorations across the full spectrum of light and the endemic slow violence caused by human domestic light poverty across the world.

Labern&Lloyd chose the human labour and skill of hand cutting the paper stencils over a period of 12 hours, matching the year round daylight hours experienced daily by people living on the line of the equator; the prints are screened in the same UV used by the British Security Industry to track our movements, identity and money.

The Public Typing Pool©, with its manual typewriters fitted with invisible UV inked typewriter ribbons, welcomed the public to contribute to an ever growing installation of contemporary concerns, made from UV ink texts and drawings revealed through the use of hand held Black Light torches.

Part of the International Year of Light in collaboration with the Institute of Physics.

 

 

 

WITH THANKS

the drawing shed would like to thank the following people and organisations for their invaluable contributions to this project:

Dr Matthew Clark, Chemist and Education Manager & Richard Ashworth, Colour Experience Manager: Society of Dyers and Colourists

Dr Sergio Ioppolo & Daniel Weatherhill: Astrophysicists, Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University

Ali Hudson: Evolutionary Biology and astrophysics student, Edinburgh University

Toby Shannon: the Institute of Physics’ Coordinator of International Year of Light

Joseph Kopiel, Artist: stencil cutting and screen-printing

University of East London: ADI, Print Studio

Tate Modern: Public Programmes, Community

Brian Rothwell, typewriter ribbons: Inkjet Stores, Bury, Greater Manchester

Simon Foster-Ogg: provider of things interesting and light-related

 

#STRANGERNEIGHBOUR

#STRANGERNEIGHBOUR

#STRANGERNEIGHBOUR 

On Saturday 9th November 2013, 1.30 – 3pm, the drawing shed‘s Lloyd+Labern,#WOW festival micropoet @herbieherb and Jacob Sam-La Rose led a Twitter Performance, open to Arvon residency participants, community and ‘public’ in joining in; with the core group following a devised ‘SCORE’, we moved between exploring themes of home, stranger and neighbour, through discomfort of the unknown, and comfort of the known, and the merge of these two assumed places, ideas collided and tweets came together using the hashtag #StrangerNeighbour
It was an extraordinary event, where people came together at Winns Gallery Lloyd Park E17 to sit around the typing pool, whilst other typed and many tweeted amongst the noise of machine but no human voice, and in the silence that seemed to permeate the space despite, and the ether becoming a community space of the imagination.

STRANGER : NEIGHBOUR 2013-14

STRANGER : NEIGHBOUR 2013-14

STRANGER : NEIGHBOUR 2013-14

STRANGER : NEIGHBOUR– Artists Labern+Lloyd in Residence at Winns Gallery, a ‘scored’ live art writing Twitter Performance, a Typing Pool, two writers, a three day writing workshop at William Morris Gallery and an inter-generational and culturally-diverse group of 16 Waltham Forest residents! #WOW
In November 2013, visual Artists Bobby Lloyd and Sally Labern from the drawing shed, inspired by their ArtAngel Open100 project, Sky.l.Ark, set up an exhibition and project space in Winns Gallery E17 entitled: “Stranger: Neighbour & The Lost Print”. With an enthusiastically received public Typing Pool of fabulous old fashioned typewriters and showing a series of trade mark screened ‘Lost Prints’ on archive tissue alongside a build up of carbon copies, Labern+Lloyd made new work in the space around the theme of Stranger : Neighbour. This references the split second changes in the skylark’s song, unheard by human ear which delineates recognition of stranger and neighbour, of threat and territory, of warning and welcome.
Throughout October 2013, the artists and writers Jacob Sam-La Rose and Nichola Charalambou led public inter-generational writing workshops in LockUpNumber11, the drawing shed’s new project space on The Drive estate, London E17 (courtesy of Ascham Homes) and in The Mill community centre and Walthamstow School for Girls E17. With national literature partner ARVON, the artists and writers also led a three day intensive writing residency in early November where participants worked individually and in groups, using pen and the ubiquitous exercise book and moleskin!
On Saturday 9th November 2013, 1.30 – 3.00pm, the drawing shed‘s Lloyd+Labern, #WOW festival micropoet @herbieherb and Jacob Sam-La Rose, led a TWITTER PERFORMANCE using the hashtag #StrangerNeighbour. This was open to the writing residency participants, with the local community and ‘public’ joining in. With the core group following a devised ‘SCORE’, we moved between exploring themes of home, stranger and neighbour – through the discomfort of the unknown, the comfort of the known and the merging of these two assumed places. Ideas, memories and observations were shared and then collided, tweets at odds, even dissonant, then echoing one another and ending in a respectful, slowed down rhythm. It was an extraordinary event, where people came together at Winns Gallery Lloyd Park E17 to sit around the typing pool, whilst others typed and many tweeted amongst the noise of machine but no human voice. In the silence that seemed to permeate the space despite all the ‘sound’, the ether emerged into a community space of the imagination.
As an integral part of the project, the drawing shed also commissioned filmmaker Paul Fletcher from e17films and Walthamstow International Film Festival (WIFF) to make A SHORT FILM in response to ‘Stranger : Neighbour’ – which has led to a poetic response, using QWERTY from the typewriter keys and references to Hollis Frampton’s ‘Zom’s Lemma’ (1970).
Finally at Winns Gallery, the drawing shed introduced an ’emergency shelter’ as an intervention into the gallery space, a physical/ideological object they are using in all their project work, both on and off the housing estates, and in settings across London and beyond the UK.

IDEASFROMELSE[W]HERE

IDEASFROMELSE[W]HERE

THE IRREGULAR BULLETIN

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IdeasFromElse[W]here is an arts laboratory project led by the drawing shed lead artists Sally Labern and Bobby Lloyd and co-curated by artist Jordan McKenzie. From the project base in Winns Gallery, E17 (and throughout Lloyd Park), from June 16 – July 13 2014, artists and the public came together to collectively engage in the sharing and exploration of art-making, performance and creative ideas.

Informed by the likes of Allan Kaprow, multi-disciplinary artists and makers from across Waltham Forest, the UK and as far away as New York, joined us in opening up, challenging and extending the processes of devising, making and presenting art, with this ‘festival of ideas’ incorporating live art performance, film, live writing, dance, text, print, sculpture, sound, and new media. Provocations, invitations and responses from artists and public participation continually informed and adapted the project from the Winns project space as well as from the drawing shed‘s project space LockUpNumber11 on The Drive estate E17 and the ARTS LAB PROJECT BLOG – www.ideasfromelsewhere.wordpress.com – which continues to develop as a document for experimentation, dialogue, and evaluation of this arts lab and the process of ‘thinking through making’.

The IdeasFromElse[W]here project space at Winns Gallery was open to the public 11am – 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday, from June 18 to July 11 2014. On Mondays and Tuesdays during the project, resident artists used the project space to play, experiment and develop their own work. At these times the artists also had exclusive access to the William Morris Galleryarchive, library and research resources.

Over 50 artists and practitioners were involved in the arts lab, including

Katy Baird     Nadia Berri     Sarah Buckle     Laura Dee Milnes     Ben Faga       Film Direction     Simon Foster-Ogg     Joseph Kopiel     Sally Labern              Bobby Lloyd    Leah Lovett    Jordan McKenzie    Justine Pearsall    RARA    Annette Robinson    Phil Sanger    Single Action Group    Site Space    Steakhouse Live    Daniella Valz Gen   Carrieanne Vivianette    Ed Woodham

In the run up to and duration of IdeasFromElse[W]here we invited Cara Courage to ask questions of and write critically on the process in the role of ‘Thinker in Residence’. This role ran in parallel with Cara’s research into the drawing shed‘s projects for her PhD studentship at University of Brighton Doctoral College, looking at grassroots urban arts interventions and the affect they have on people and place in an investigation of the phenomenon and theory of relocalism.

In addition to PrintBike, by popular demand the drawing shed brought back The Public Typing Pool, striking up letters and conversations in exchange with users of The Public Typing Pool concurrently installed alongside Laurence Weiner in the new Sculpture Centre in Bury, greater Manchester, as part of Text Festival.

Alongside the daily art-making and performance that developed organically and spontaneously throughout the month, programmed events included Film Direction’s screening of ‘A-Z of London: 26 Raw Films’, People Pavilions with the public joining RARA to build human pyramids in Lloyd Park, and performances from Single Action Group, Steakhouse Live, and Site Space

Over the course of the arts lab, artists contributed to zine boxes which were auctioned at ‘JUNK, A FUN[D]RAISER’ at Winns Gallery on Thursday 10th July. A fundraiser to support the drawing shed‘s future projects, the evening also included film and live art performance, bringing artists and the public together to celebrate the arts lab in its final few days.

CLAYOVEN COOKBOOK

CLAYOVEN COOKBOOK

CLAYOVEN COOKBOOK

ClayOven was born in 2010 as an idea in response to the residents of the YMCA – which itself sits to the South of the two estates – most residents are still unable to cook their own meals and many talk freely of this as separating them off from being able to be connect to that deeper cultural part of themselves which is signified by the making and sharing of food. Residents at the Y now volunteer in their excellent cafe helping to cook food for each other.

Launched at a community organised event, residents decided that they needed ClayOven to be mobile so it can remain safe and unattractive to bored teenagers, this extraordinary ‘gift’ to the community was made by many local families and has now been well and truly understood as valuable, creative and a powerful connector; it is used at every public community event where food is on the agenda!

It was also at the heart of the various ‘cook and eat’ sessions. The project invited families to share the cooking of a simple culturally-specific meal together in each other’s homes as another facet of this dialogue – we called this ‘Eat-Ins’ and they ran alongside ‘Eat-Outs’ where the community cooked and ate together in the open air. This continued to inform the cookbook that documented the building of the ClayOven and the ritual of food within the everyday, within evolving personal / community identities.

This whole project was inspired by Sister Corita whose community cafe ran alongside the print workshop that provided radical posters during the anti vietnam protests of the 1960’s.

The cookbook is an ongoing and developing resource, any ideas – please do share!

Everyone can add a recipe! Write yours to thedrawingshed@gmail.com sharing an image too.

Click on the image below to see the ClayOven cookbook: