~ Mapping Local Ecologies
october 2021 - september 2022
goldsmiths CCA, New Cross, London
goldsmithscca.art
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Mapping Local Ecologies presents a schedule of regular events and activities aimed at re-discovering and re-engaging with historical and newfound narratives within the locale of New Cross and South East London at large.
In the form of a research group conducted through a series of tours, talks, and workshops held at the CCA, the year-long project aims to explore local oral histories and narratives, seeking to address themes of gentrification, local identity, and community building. The tours and workshops will be led by various guest contributors such as community members, local artists and networks within the broader Goldsmiths student ecology.
Aiming to engender the production of uncommon knowledge, the group will imagine New Cross as a site of transformation through collectively producing a cartographical document to re-trace existing histories and potential futures within the neighbourhood.
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Programme archive:
> 21 November 2021
The Politics of Wordlessness, Evelina Hägglund
The Politics of Wordlessness is a discussion-based walking tour centred on the areas of New Cross and Deptford, exploring language as an alternative tool for map-making. Led by artist Evelina Hägglund, the group will visit local monuments, landmarks, holes, garden allotments and other related sites to uncover existing and newfound narratives. Through collectively engaging with our surroundings, we will explore new ways of understanding our public spaces through the act of asking questions and initiating conversation, concluding at Goldsmiths CCA to share tea, coffee and reflections on thoughts generated throughout the afternoon.
> 13 December 2021
Reading* Session, Mapping Local Ecologies
This Reading* Session will explore our relationship to each other and to our urban environment, specifically within the context of New Cross and Southeast London. Together, we will unpack and share our reflections on short texts, audio clips and film excerpts responding to Urban Ecologies as an overarching theme.
> 30 January 2022
Mapping Colour, Gal Leshem
Led by London-based artist Gal Leshem, Mapping Colour will explore personal items and the histories they carry through the prism of colour - aiming to individually/collectively map colour and its role in the significance of memory, ritual and experience. As part of this workshop, it is encouraged that each participant brings an object that holds significant cultural meaning on a personal level.
> 29 March 2022
Screening: Public House (2016)
Mapping Local Ecologies are delighted to present a screening of Public House (2016); a feature-length documentary film about the Ivy House Pub in Peckham, made by South East London based artist Sarah Turner. Slated to be sold to property developers in 2012, the local community triumphantly came together to save the pub from closure. The film features their voices, poems and performances, as well as key moments in the community takeover which led the Ivy House to become one of the UK’s first cooperatively owned pubs and the country’s first ‘asset of community value’. Through dance, poetry and song the film builds into an exhilarating participatory opera of multi-layered voices telling a tale of social resilience in the face of creeping gentrification. The session concludes with a Q&A with the artist.
> 8 May 2022
Bread and Butter, Alicja Rogalska
Titled Bread and Butter, the workshop will take Rogalska's Pretend You've Got No Money project as a starting point - an undercover audio tour of a supermarket focusing on the politics of food production, distribution and consumption. The participants will be encouraged to explore sites in New Cross, such as local grocers and supermarkets, and note their political and social significance - focusing on global connections in the hyperlocal context. They will then collaboratively create an alternative guided tour of the area, mixing factual information, alternative narratives and collective actions. Re-developed in 2021 by Artsadmin as part of What Shall We Build Here festival, Pretend You’ve Got No Money by Alicja Rogalska was originally designed for a local supermarket in Flemingsberg, Sweden as part of a Local Minima project with Vision Forum. Narrated by Anna-Maria Nabirye. Sound by Martin Clarke.
> 21 May 2022
Havens in the City, The Alternative School of Economics
Havens in the City is a creative workshop using drawing and listening as primary tools. Exploring what a ‘haven in the city’ means, we will touch on ideas of escape and how the urban environment affects our bodies and minds; discussing the importance of access to free, public or collectively run spaces in an increasingly privatised city-scape, where property is used as a proxy investment bank.
Photography by Edward Longville.