~ LVAN: Relay!

LVAN: Relay! presented an artist-led participatory programme produced in partnership with all 44 organisations that make up the Lewisham Visual Art Network (LVAN) and who are working collaboratively to raise the profile of the arts in the borough.

Designed to connect communities in Lewisham with the plethora of visual arts spaces and activities happening throughout the area during the Lewisham Borough of Culture campaign, this one-day live/online event aimed to open up local ecologies and geographies through the lens of walking, tracing and memory building. The programme featured two ‘walking tour’ workshops led by artist duo Kneed (Ishwari Bhalerao and Leonie Rousham) and artist/facilitator Hannah Cushion.

Curated by Mapping Local Ecologies: Edward Longville, Fiona Irene Graf, Yurika Imaseki and Ankita Mukherji.

Website design by Sean Burn.

Venue support from Lewisham Art House, no format Gallery and Goldsmtihs CCA.

This event was generously supported by Lewisham Borough of Culture and Goldsmiths, University of London.

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Kneed: Wayward Maps

As part of the LVAN: Relay! the artist collective Kneed (Ishwari Bhalerao and Leonie Rousham) will lead a walking tour through parts of New Cross and Deptford. Prompting audiences to experience the local area through the lens of privatisation, landlordism and the effects of the ongoing housing crisis, the tour will discuss public space as a continuation of colonial legacies and the exploitation of land and the people who care for it. By questioning how we can attempt to complicate, attend to, communicate, absorb, reiterate, work with, critique and witness the histories and stories embedded within these spaces, Kneed seeks to imagine tools and strategies of mapping, storytelling and the archiving of spaces. Wayward Maps invites participants to imagine what spaces have the potential to hold and to discuss what we learn from stories of trauma, exploitation, recovery, joy, growth, cycles of life embedded within spaces and our own bodies.

Hannah Cushion: The Memory Bank

As part of LVAN: Relay!, artist and facilitator Hannah Cushion will lead a walking tour around Deptford and New Cross. Starting at No Format Gallery, the walk is designed to set up a series of moments for participants to talk, connect and exchange memories, and is based on stories and recollections gathered from people of the local community before the event. Participants are invited to respond to these memories at different points on the walk through creative tasks, conversations, games, and quiet contemplation.