July - November 2011
Road to 2012: A Local Story highlights east London perspectives on the changing landscape and the impact of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to the area. Members of local sports and community groups in the five Olympic-host boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Newham and Greenwich share their thoughts, hopes and aspirations.
Documented by east London photographer Katherine Green, this project features images and recordings of Repton Boxing Club in Bethnal Green, Docklands Sailing and Watersport Centre in the Isle of Dogs, Youngs Table Tennis Group in Abbey Wood, the East London Wheelchair Athletics Club in Mile End, the Royal London Society for the Blind in Tower Hamlets, Branches homeless shelter in Waltham Forest, London Fields Lido in Hackney, Blackheath Fencing club in Greenwich and Ashton-Mansfield community centre in Newham. All images and recordings of the project can be found on the National Portrait Gallery website by searching the Participate timeline.
21 July - 18 August 2011
Hackney Wick is at the centre of massive regeneration, which is impacting profoundly on residents, visitors and local workers. The ʻCutʼ is the stretch of the Lea River Navigation Canal, which symbolically separates or joins the area to the biggest change, The Olympic Park.
Artists Jessie Brennan, Chris Dorley–Brown and Daniel Lehan have created new works through engaging with diverse groups of local people through collaborative and participatory processes. Spaces for dialogue were created within communities, through which divergent histories and aspirations for the future were explored.
Jessie Brennan has constructed a 5 metre long pencil drawing presenting the canal as an alternative reality in which miniature figures populate a grey, hybrid world.
Chris Dorley-Brown has assembled a collection of historical photographs and documents covering the period from the nineteenth century to the present day, including his own pictures which date from the 1980s plus a body of new work. “a tribute to an atmosphere loaded with the ghosts of speedway riders, lightermen, tower-block speculators, river-dwelling anarchists, banknote counterfeiters, fish- smokers, hells angels, vagabonds and land grabbers”
Chris Dorley-Brown also edited THE CUT publication, which is free, available in the Container Café at the View Tube.
Daniel Lehan has produced a series of newspaper headlines, (inspired by the notion of Chinese Whispers), reporting ʻincidents ʻ in Hackney Wick. The original wood types refer to the great number of printing firms that used to be in Hackney Wick. Daniel worked with children at Gainsborough Primary School, who collected memories and added their own interpretation. The boards are displayed on the railings outside.
THE CUT was commissioned and produced by SPACE Studios who manage visual artistsʼ studios in London. Over 80 of them are in Hackney Wick.
This project is organised and commissioned by SPACE and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Related links:
www.spacestudios.org.uk
30 June – 17 July 2011
Artist Faisal Adbu’Allah is creating Double Pendulum, a new film about breathing and movement involving professional athletes and world-class leading scientists for the View Tube. Double Pendulum will be premiered at the View Tube through a large-scale outdoor projection with the Olympic stadium as the backdrop as part of the CREATE 11 festival.
Despite being invisible, the air that surrounds us is the most valued element that our lives depend on. Double Pendulum, runs for a duration of 9’ 58” and has been determined according to the current 100-metre sprint world record of 9.58 seconds set by Usain Bolt in 2009. Three very different types of sports professionals will illustrate and map the journey that air takes through the human form alongside an engaging narrative from world-leading scientists from King’s College London and Brunel University.
With a high prevalence of asthma in elite athletes, and official readings showing an air pollution index of 87 at Beijing’s Olympic Stadium in 2008 (the World Health Organisation consider 50 to be high)1; air pollution and its effects on our lungs received significant media attention during the Beijing Olympics. In the run up to London 2012, Abdu’Allah’s film will draw attention to the impact that air pollution levels has on athletes’ performances as well as the consequences for the wider society.
As part of the artist’s commission, Abdu’Allah led a series of weekly educational workshops at the View Tube for 11-14 year olds from the local area. The young people produced their own short film, which dramatises their own take on air pollution and sport. As part of these workshops they met scientists Dr. Pascale Kippelen and Dr. Lee Romer at the Centre for Sports Medicine and Human Performance, Brunel University, where they participated in lung capacity tests usually performed on professional athletes. The film produced by the young people was premiered at the View Tube.
This project is part of Invisible Breath; a series of three commissions in Cambridge, Norwich and London in 2011 that includes artists Faisal Abdu’Allah, HeHe and Dryden Goodwin, exploring air pollution and its effects. Invisible Breath is produced by Invisible Dust; an arts and science organisation set up by curator Alice Sharp that commissions artists working in collaboration with scientists to make the invisible, visible and create public art and educational projects to highlight environmental and health awareness.
Art, Smog and the East End, Create Festival 2011 talk - Tuesday 5th July
Faisal Abdu’Allah, Tim Baker PCT and Professor Frank Kelly debate the past and future effects of air quality on art and life in east London. Tickets: www.createlondon.org.
This project was made possible by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council of England.
Invisible Dust: www.invisibledust.com
CREATE www.createlondon.org
June - August 2011
Colin Priest is a local artist commissioned to produce a temporary artwork around the idea of the bicycle, he will be positioning 100 bicycle bells across various locations along the towpath on the River Lea. Cyclists and walkers were able to ring the bells and awaken the towpath with the friendly sound of bicycle rings.
Bow Bells Ring was part of ‘Bicycle Wheel’ is a series of events commissioned for the View Tube Art 2011 programme and was part of create 11 festival.
1 – 6 July 2011
A play inspired by Luigi Bartolini’s novel Ladri Di Biciclette. Script by Kieran Lynn, conceived and directed by Henriette Baker.
Bicycle Thieves is a contemporary retelling of a classic father and son story, and a bravura celebration of BMX culture, combining theatre, bike choreography and live pedal-powered sound. An involving, interactive outdoor experience, suitable for all ages.
*Shortlisted for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award 2011*
Bicycle Thieves is part of ‘Bicycle Wheel’ is a series of events commissioned for the View Tube Art 2011 programme, commisioned by Alice Sharp of Invisible Dust and is part of create 11 festival.
12-17 July 2011
Berlin artist duo, Köbberling, Kaltwasser built Goal! : a finishing post on the Greenway for cyclists reaching the Olympic Park.
The artists have constructed their archway from discarded and recycled materials found around East London. The piece celebrates everyday cyclists reaching their goal in a style similar to that of the Olympics.
It is part of ‘Bicycle Wheel’ a series of events commissioned for the View Tube Art 2011 programme, commisioned by Alice Sharp of Invisible Dust and is part of create 11 festival.
In summer 2011 internationally renowned artist Gavin Turk and 3D Industrial Designer Ben Wilson present 4H: a reinterpretation of the bicycle for a modern era.
Wilson and Turk share a long-standing interest in the readymade and the bicycle in particular and have pushed the remarkable invention of the unicycle to an even more unusual conclusion.
Built from four unicycles supported by an H-frame, Turk and Wilson’s collaboration turns the unicycle’s main feature as a solo act into a joint effort, inviting four riders to enjoy a collective biking experience along a stretch of east London’s unique foot and cycle path, The Greenway.
Inspired by the Romanian artist André Cadere, a key figure of Minimalist and Conceptual art, Turk and Wilson have clad 4H’s frame with multi-coloured wooden segments bringing a celebratory feel to the bicycle with fetes and festivals in mind.
4H highlights the need for more thoughtful, sustainable and pleasurable ways to travel and was available for the public to ride at View Tube.
July 2011
Taking inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel, 1913, the first ready-made, which forever challenged the assumptions of what constitutes as art, ‘Bicycle Wheel’ is a series of art events on three weekends in July 2011 as part of the View Tube Art Programme conceived by curator Alice Sharp from Invisible Dust to raise environmental debate and encourage cycling through art by people in East London.
Bicycle Wheel comprises of five artist’s commissions involving Köbberling & Kaltwasser, Gavin Turk/Ben Wilson, Bicycle Thieves and Colin Priest.
See separate entries for further detail on this series.
Summer 2011
Bow Arts Trust in partnership with The View Tube will deliver recycling projects in 2 local Newham Primary Schools, professional development sessions for the Newham Art Teachers Network and an artist’s professional development session for local artists.
www.bowarts.org
www.londonsartistquarter.org
Bow Arts Trust artists’ workshop
The Whitechapel Gallery together with the View Tube will be producing a series of curator and artists debates around art in the public realm and the regeneration developments in East London in the Summer 2011.
Princes Drawing School is working with the View Tube and Newham Council to develop a drawing project where artist Ben Barbour works with children selected from 15 Newham schools once a week to enhance their drawing skills and ideas.
Newham Council will be offering 1:1 advice and professional development sessions for Newham based artists at the View Tube.
www.newham.gov.uk
