Building work starts on the former Peckham Road Fire Station

It's an exciting time to be working at the South London Gallery (SLG)! The stage two bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (which I contributed towards) was successful and the gallery has started construction work on the former Peckham Road Fire Station with the aim to open it to the public as a cultural centre in 2018. The SLG are now seeking donors and partners to help raise the final £700,000.

I have just appointed the first additional post in the lead up to the fire station opening. This is a Heritage Education Coordinator who will be responsible for working with schools and community groups responding to both the fire station building and the gallery's archives (which will be publicly available for the first time both online and displayed in the new building). This role will also be involved in collecting oral histories, working with heritage trainees and setting up a volunteer programme. In addition, the SLG is also currently recruiting for an archivist.

For more information take a look at the SLG's fire station website page and also at the article "Peckham's former fire station rises from ashes as new hotspot of art" in the Evening Standard

Fair Funding For All Schools

I have been getting involved in the campaign for fair funding for all schools - nationally signing online petitions and more locally in Lambeth writing to my MP Helen Hayes as well as flyering at my son's school. The government wants to cut £25 million from Lambeth schools by 2019, meaning that some schools are having to save up to 25% of their budget. At my son's school they will lose out on £254,872 by 2019, the equivalent of £689 per pupil. Whilst I agree with the principle of providing additional support to pupils in challenging areas, I do not agree that these additional resources should be found by cutting funding to other schools. This will have inevitable consequences for curriculum breadth, staffing levels, lesson resources, extra-curricular opportunities, etc. I believe it would be fairer for all children if more money could be found for the following key aims:

1. Increasing investment in all schools by protecting funding in real terms for the life of this parliament
2. Providing the additional funding needed to implement the proposed formula so that funding for schools in more poorly funded areas is increased without cutting funding for other schools
3. Ensuring sufficient funding for children with significant special educational needs and disabilities

The government claims that there is not enough money available to do this, yet free schools are being built in areas where additional school places are not needed (as well as where there is a need) and there are plans for extra money to be pumped into grammar schools. Parents and teachers will be fighting their corner in the next few months to make sure that their voices are heard and that the National Funding Formula really means 'fair' funding'.

For more information visit Fair Funding Lambeth Facebook and Twitter

South London is so rich with culture and fun for families

Being a Mum of two I am always looking out for places to visit with my kids. My two boys love the train ride into central London and we sometimes visit the bigger museums and galleries, but it is the local South London cultural venues that we love visiting together the most. Within a twenty minute drive we can be at the SLG for it's weekly Sunday Spot (innovative themed artist-led drop-in sessions where my kids take the lead experimenting), Dulwich Picture Gallery for it's more traditional family sessions (first and last Sunday of the month drop-ins alternating between Gallery Stories and ArtPlay practical workshops), and the Horniman Museum for it's overall family friendly offer (interactive exhibitions, animal walk, hands on base, aquarium, music gallery and gardens to run around in, as well as art & craft activities during holidays and at special events). Other favourite local venues are 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning (with its pioneering young people's projects and Youth Enterprise Hustlebucks based in Brixton Village) and Battersea Arts Centre (with it's entertaining shows for children and Bees Knees play space for under 5s). I have also been pleasantly surprised to find that the more commercial art galleries, such as White Cube Bermondsey, are becoming much more welcoming to those visiting with children. I feel very lucky that South London is so rich with culture and fun for families!

The Creative Case for Diversity

How do we diversify the arts sector both in terms of audience and workforce? This is a difficult question to answer and something that is being re-highlighted by Arts Council England. At the SLG, in terms of artists, we are running a project called Making Routes with Battersea Arts Centre and Oasis Children's Venture, consisting of residencies for disabled and non-disabled artists across all three venues along with a culminating inclusive festival, and on the housing estates local to the gallery we are commissioning artists who include those that are culturally representative of the local community. Staff-wise we are setting up new traineeships for which we are hoping to attract applicants who are under-represented in galleries and who are thinking about an alternative to studying at University. Each traineeship will include accreditation and will be tailored to meet the interests of the successful applicant. We have also set up a diverse Community Forum with up to 25 people from the local area who are advising us on how to become more inclusive and helping us to access audiences we do not already engage with.

There is no quick fix to addressing the creative case for diversity but investment now by galleries should pay off in the future and readdress gaps in both visitors and staffing.

Exhibition-wise I recently visited Ain't I Beautiful at 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, and I am looking forward to seeing The Place is Here at Nottingham Contemporary and also Jamie Crewe: Female Executioner at Gasworks.

Arts Award Supporter

I am pleased to have recently registered the SLG as an Arts Award Supporter where we offer gallery visits, workshops and expertise to children and young people already working towards their Arts Award with a registered Arts Award Centre. All of our activities for children and young people are free, including:

• Visits to an art exhibition this could support for example, Bronze & Silver – arts review units;
• Artist led workshops for schools with a practical element. This could support for example, Discover – find out unit, Explore – create unit, or Bronze – take part in an arts activity unit;
• Art Assassins for young people aged 14-20 on Tuesday evenings. This could support for example, Bronze – arts skills share unit, Silver – arts research & arts leadership units, or Gold – arts practice unit;
• REcreative website this could support for example, Silver – arts review & arts research units.

We are also thinking about piloting Arts Award Discover in a day with several classes from a local primary school, as well as exploring the idea of offering Arts Award Silver or Gold as part of our forthcoming traineeships, as I am a registered Arts Award Adviser.

January Student Visits

This year we've already had many Uni student groups visiting the SLG. In particular I've enjoyed presenting and discussing the SLG's participation programme with groups from the Institute of Education's Museums and Galleries in Education MA course, and from Goldsmith's MA Artist Teachers & Contemporary Practices course. For the latter we have set the students a brief, asking them to bring our educational approach into their creative thinking around ideas that could take place in the gallery's Gabriel Orozco garden. These could be events, interventions, exhibitions or programmes. We are looking forward to hearing their ideas during a subsequent visit.

Highlights of 2016 & Looking Ahead to 2017

Highlights for me during 2016 include:

• working with Art on the Underground and artist Jasleen Kaur on Crafting the line
• leading on the Community Consultation for the Fire Station Annexe at the SLG which fed into the gallery's HLF phase 2 bid, and has led onto setting up the SLG's new Community Forum
• being asked to stay on at the SLG as Head of Education (maternity) and having the opportunity to work with the Guggenheim on the exhibition Under the Same Sun

In 2017 I am looking forward to:

• the start of an exciting new project at the SLG which will include the move of The Shop of Possibilities into the newly reopened Lakanal building on Sceaux Gardens estate 
• going freelance again from April 2017 - watch this space!

Happy New Year everyone!

Community Forum for the SLG

Since carrying out the community consultation for the SLG and Fire Station development in January to April this year I have been keen to set up a Community Forum for the gallery to continue the conversations. A few weeks ago the first meeting of the Community Forum took place with a great turn out of 18 invited people representing various aspects of the local community such as businesses, the working fire station, schools, residents, artists, Camberwell College of Arts, Southwark Pensioners Centre, and also people interested in the heritage of Peckham and Camberwell. Forum meetings will take place three times a year with the Forum members also invited to exhibition previews at the SLG across each year, as well as the opening of the Fire Station Annexe in 2018. 

Crafting the Line with Jasleen Kaur

I am pleased to see that the schools project I worked on for Art on the Underground as Schools Project Manager with artist Jasleen Kaur, during January to March this year, is now on display. The pupils' work is being shown until the end of December, in the six underground stations along the Victoria Line located near to each of the six schools we worked with across six boroughs. The accompanying leaflet shows the objects as new and innovative products, as if presented as an imaginary shop stretching the length of the Victoria line. Crafting the Line is part of Underline: Art & Music for the Victoria Line. 

For more about the project take a look here, and to see Jasleen's film about the shop keepers and crafts people along the Victoria line visit here.

SLG's Garden Activity Box

I have created a garden activity box for the SLG's new garden. The garden has been designed by Gabriel Orozco with support from 6a architects and horticulturalists at Kew Gardens. The garden box contains watering cans, an explorer's hat, clipboards with question sheets and magnifying glasses, two books (The Secret Garden story book and a book about insects), along with colouring pencils and paper. The box is available from the new Fox reception at the back of the SLG, next to the garden. Many visitors are happy exploring the garden on their own but for others this provides tools for engagement, covering a range of learning styles.

For more information about the SLG's Orozco garden take a look here.

A New Garden for the SLG and Related Projects

In early October the SLG opened its new permanent garden designed by artist Gabriel Orozco, with support from 6a architects and horticulturists at Kew Gardens. The garden, which was an unattractive area of paved land at the back of the SLG, has been transformed into a unique sculptural work with a walkway and a reception area welcoming the residents from Sceaux Gardens housing estate during weekends and for special events.

For more information about the SLG's Orozco garden take a look here.

To celebrate the garden opening, we invited artist Emma Smith to bring her School for Tourists project to the SLG. Emma worked with members of the public at two events, along with residents from Sceaux Gardens housing estate - including the children at the Shop of Possibilities - and students from Camberwell College of Art to create a collaborative intervention exploring the roles of 'host' and 'guest'. The culmination of the project is a host/guest book available for the public to sign in the garden reception area, along with limited edition artworks created by Emma in the form of seed packets and host/guest badges, encouraging debate about what it means to be a host or a guest. In a particular context, such as the SLG garden, are you a host or are you a guest? For me this is particularly pertinent thinking about current issues around immigration and Brexit. 

School for Tourists was initiated by Emma Smith at Grizedale Arts in 2011, and has since toured internationally. For more information about Emma's project at the SLG take a look here, and about School for Tourists here.

Whose Art? Our Art! Engage Conference 2016

I have just returned from this years' engage conference in Liverpool, themed around access and activism. I also enjoyed visiting some of the Liverpool Biennial, in particular Marvin Gaye Chetwynd's project Dogsy Ma Bone where she worked with 78 children and young people from across the city to create a film and live performances. Sally Tallant, Director of the Liverpool Biennial, kicked off the engage conference in an inspiring way by saying: "We don't have an education programme. Everything we do is education."

For me the best part of the engage conference was the plenary session chaired by Dr Henry Ward, Head of Education at the Freelands Foundation, which focused on the relationship between art and creativity and art's purpose within the school curriculum. I was blown away by Mike Fairclough's vision as headteacher at West Rise Junior School in Eastbourne where creativity is right across the curriculum. Here the children take part in Forest School lessons, including looking after water buffalo and building a roundhouse in the marsh land leased by the school. If I had taught at a school like this maybe I wouldn't have left teaching in primary schools twenty years ago!

Watch a short film West Rise: School by the Marsh here

The Source of Art is in the Life of a People

I have been very fortunate to work with artist Roman Ondak during the installation of his exhibition Roman Ondak: The Source of Art is in the Life of a People at the SLG. The title of his exhibition is taken from the inscription on the nineteenth century marquetry floor designed by Walter Crane, which is usually hidden under the wooden floorboards in the main gallery. Roman Ondak has chosen to expose the floor piece alongside three of his artworks. One of these is a series of blown up pages from a 1960s text book outlining social codes of behaviour, relocated high up on the gallery walls. After employing sign writers to paint the original text the artist invited young people aged 12-18 (the ages of his two children) to add interventions. The young people came as groups from local schools, as part of the gallery's Art Assassins youth collective and other gallery youth forums, as well as individuals from the local area. They were elevated by scaffolding towers and skyjack machinery to just below the gallery ceiling, donning hard hats and high vis jackets whilst they worked. There were no limitations on what they could write or draw, as long as the material they used was graphite.

For more information about the exhibition take a look here

We are no longer Under the Same Sun

I am sad to say farewell to an inspiring exhibition and over three months of related community engagement with the closure of Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today at the SLG. 

Check out my blog written for the SLG: "Workshops, Artist Projects, and Outreach Help Build Community Engagement" here

Plaza Latina & the Latin American Community

During the exhibition Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today we have been focusing on engaging with the Latin American community located in the nearby Elephant and Castle Area. In particular we have been supported by Latin Elephant in our community outreach. They are a charity that promotes alternative and innovative ways of engaging and incorporating migrant and ethnic groups in urban regeneration processes in London, particularly relevant at present with the redevelopment of the shopping centre at Elephant and Castle.

One example of us working with a Latin American audience was at Plaza Latina a Latin American festival at the end of July, based in Nursery Row Park near Elephant and Castle. Here we worked with Argentinean artist Laura X Carle and over 100 participants to create a wooden structure covered in brightly coloured tissue paper. At the end of the day we culminated with a grand finale where the families burst through the paper, representing the breaking down of borders.

Former Peckham Road Fire Station Update

It's so exciting to see Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today on the ground floor of the former Peckham Road Fire Station building which was given to the South London Gallery by an anonymous donor and for which I did the Community Consultation during January to April this year. You can glimpse the potential of the building being transformed into a new cultural centre for the community in Autumn 2018. After Under the Same Sun closes in early September building work will begin and we will be focusing on raising the final amount for the project to be able to be completed. Exciting times!

To find out more about the Fire Station building take a look here

Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today

I am lucky to be working with such a fantastic exhibition at The South London Gallery. Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today is the second exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. Curated by Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, in collaboration with the South London Gallery, the exhibition displays recently acquired works by more than 20 artists including installation, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, and video.

As part of the programme there has been an education exchange with staff at the three institutions displaying the show: The South London Gallery, Museo Jumex in Mexico and the Guggenheim in  New York. It was a pleasure to host staff from the Guggenheim during the opening week of the exhibition in London. Two particular highlights for me so far have been Federico Herrero's residency on the Pelican Housing estate creating a colourful floor mural amongst the play equipment, and Amalia Pica's Asamble participatory performance on Sat 11 June where 40 local residents carried chairs to Peckham Square, then almost formed a seated circle before the first person stood up and started to form another circle (repeating three times in total).

But most interesting for me, as a member of staff, has been taking part in Amalia Pica's A ∩ B ∩ C, 2013 where I have performed with her colourful acrylic shapes, creating unexpected combinations that intersected with my colleagues' choices, as a comment on collaboration and community. (Amalia was at school in the 1970's when the Argentinian dictators incredibly banned Venn Diagrams and set theory, viewing them as potentially subversive at a time when public gatherings were taking place.)

For more information about Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today at The South London Gallery (until 4 September) take a look here

Head of Education (maternity) role

I am excited to be covering the Head of Education (maternity) role at the South London Gallery (SLG) for the next twelve months. The education programme is run by a fantastic team of  staff, covering audiences of schools & community, young people, and children & families. For example, as part of the children & families programme staff work closely with the local residents on Sceaux Gardens estate, at the back of the SLG, where since May 2012  they have run The Shop of Possibilities in a former retail outlet in the middle of the estate. Open after school and on Saturdays, children can attend unaccompanied or with their families with a focus on bringing together children's play and contemporary art practices. On Sunday afternoons the back gate from the SLG's garden to the estate is also open and children can join in the family session Sunday Spot  at the SLG which I attend regularly with my four year old. I am looking forward to finding out more about the  SLG's programmes as I get involved in my new role.

For further information about the SLG's Education Programme take a look here

Have Your Say

The online survey for gathering thoughts about the South London Gallery's transformation of the former Peckham Road Fire Station is now up. I am also running a drop-in open event weekend on Sat 19 and Sun 20 March, 11am - 5pm, at the South London Gallery as an opportunity for people to find out more and share their ideas. A big thank you to Katie Reynolds, Community Consultation Assistant.

For further information and for the online survey take a look here

Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery

I've been back again working as a freelancer at the National Portrait Gallery focusing on two projects both inspired by the exhibition Vogue 100: A Century of Style.

Firstly Pick up a Pencil: Drop-in drawing for Ages 14-21 co-hosted by fashion illustrator Miss Led and the Gallery's fabulous Youth Forum members. Participants created their own Vogue covers from drawings of portraits in the Gallery and cut up magazines, as well as having their photographs taken against a floor backdrop each thinking about their made-up 'in front of the camera' self.

Check out images on the Youth Forum's Facebook here

I also worked with two designers, Lily Arnold and Elly Strigner, and an amazing group of young people aged 14-21 on a three-day half-term holiday project, Strike a Pose, culminating in a public showcase in the Victorian Galleries. Participants constructed paper contemporary garments to create an ‘alter ego’. For the showcase the young people had make-up done by students from London College of Beauty Therapy (LCBT) - thanks to Eleanor Holbrook and her team!

"I really liked the three-day project as there was enough time to make something you are proud of and to meet new people."

"I have discovered that my alter ego is more colourful than I thought it would be and that I am more creative than I thought."

Check out images on the Youth Forum's Facebook here