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New Studio Available

Studios Available at The Lewisham Arthouse

Studio G1
Permanent studio space available from the 1st of May 2024. The studio is 121 sq ft and the rent is £77.64 per calendar month.
This studio is on the ground floor and has natural light. It is an open studio.

Application deadline Wednesday 3 April 2024 by 6pm…..

Interviews will be held the week commencing 8 April 2024 from 6.30pm onwards via Zoom.

Please check junk/spam mailbox in the event of being contacted for interview.

Lewisham Arthouse is pleased to announce that we have a new permanent studio available from the start of February 2024. We are an artist run cooperative based in the old Deptford library on Lewisham Way. Studio rent includes electricity, water, building insurance and service charges. Access to WiFi and an outdoor working area is also available.

Besides paying rent studio members are required to contribute at least 5 work hours per month in support of Lewisham Arthouse. These work hours provide staffing for our Learning, Exhibition and Events programmes as well as the running of the building and keep both the studio rents and facilities affordable. Roles are hands-on and include; working on the rolling program of exhibitions and events, fundraising, implementing education programmes, PR, health and safety and building maintenance. It’s a great way to gain professional skills and valuable experience of working within an active and friendly community organisation. Studio membership is allocated according to artistic consistency, the qualities a candidate can offer the working cooperative, a positive attitude and a commitment to be present in Lewisham Arthouse for a minimum amount of time each month. We are an equal opportunities group and will endeavour to meet each individual’s needs as much as possible.

If you are interested in joining The Lewisham Arthouse Studio Cooperative please do send an application in. Below is the information that we require in the application. Please apply either over email to studios@lewishamarthouse.org.uk or by post to:
The Lewisham Arthouse
FAO Allocations
140 Lewisham Way
London
SE14 6PD

Application procedure:
* A statement (no more than 200 words) outlining your practice and areas of interest and an indication of how you wish to use this opportunity
*A statement (no more than 150 words) highlighting what you could contribute and how the cooperative would work for you.
* Artists CV (no more than 2 sides of A4)
* Equal-Opportunities-Form-2022

* CD or files with up to ten images or for time-based work DVD (pieces or excerpts should be no longer than 5 minutes). If you are sending over email where possible please keep the files to a reasonable size. We will accept whatever format is easiest for you to render the work in. If We transfer can be avoided that would be great as it sets a limit on the duration of time the images can be viewed.
* Corresponding list of titles, media and dimensions should be included.
* Two details of references academic or personal who we can contact if your application is successful

Please note that due to the high number of applications we receive we will not be contacting those who are not shortlisted and will be unable to offer feedback. For the same reason we are also unable to organise viewings prior to the interview.

If you have any queries regarding your application please contact us at studios@lewishamarthouse.org.uk and we will respond as soon possible


Studio Available

Studios Available at The Lewisham Arthouse

Studio Details:

Studios Available at The Lewisham Arthouse
Studio Details:
(Photos)
Studio- 110.7 sq ft at £71 per month available from the 1st April 2023
This studio is on the ground floor, has a natural light and a door
Deadline to apply: 28th February, 6pm.
Shortlisted Applicants will be contacted for interview shortly after this date.
Interviews will be held: In the week commencing the 6th March 2023 from 6pm onwards

Lewisham Arthouse is pleased to announce that we have one new studio available from the start of April. We are an artist run cooperative based in the old Deptford library on Lewisham way. Studio rent includes electricity, water, building insurance and service charges. Access to WiFi and an outdoor working area is also available.

Besides paying rent studio members are required to contribute at least 5 hours work per month in support of Lewisham Arthouse. These work hours provide staffing for our Learning, Exhibition and Events programmes as well as the running of the building and keep both the studio rents and facilities affordable. Roles are hands-on and include; working on the rolling program of exhibitions and events, fundraising, implementing education programmes, PR, health and safety and building maintenance. It’s a great way to gain professional skills and valuable experience of working within an active and friendly community organisation. Studio membership is allocated according to artistic consistency, the qualities a candidate can offer the working cooperative, a positive attitude and a commitment to be present in Lewisham Arthouse for a minimum amount of time each month. We are an equal opportunities group and will endeavour to meet each individuals needs as much as possible.

If you are your interesting in joining The Lewisham Arthouse Studio Cooperative please do send an application in. Below is the information that we require in the application. Please apply either over email to studios@lewishamarthouse.org.uk or by post to:
The Lewisham Arthouse
FAO Allocations
140 Lewisham Way
London
SE14 6PD

Application procedure:
* A statement (no more than 300 words) outlining your practice and areas of interest and an indication of how you wish to use this opportunity
*A statement (no more than 250 words) highlighting what you could contribute and how the cooperative would work for you.
* Artists CV (no more than 2 sides of A4)
* Equal Opportunities Form 2022

* CD or files with up to ten images or for time-based work DVD (pieces or excerpts should be no longer than 5 minutes). If you are sending over email where possible please keep the files to a reasonable size. We will except whatever formate is easiest for you to render the work in. If We transfer can be avoided that would be great as it’s sets a limit on the duration of time the images can be viewed.
* Corresponding list of titles, media and dimensions should be included.
* Two details of references we can contact if your application is successful

Please note that due to the high number of applications we will not be contacting those who are not shortlisted and will be unable to offer feedback. For the same reason we are also unable to organise viewings prior to the interview.

If you have any queries regarding your application please contact us at studios@lewishamarthouse.org.uk and we will respond as soon possible.


Scratching the Surface: Stretch, Resonance and Resilience

25th February 2023

25th – 7th February 2023

Opening times
The research space will be open to the public to drop in from Sat 28th Jan to Sat 4th Feb, 11am – 5pm (Closed on Sunday)

Public event
Stretch, Resonance, Resilience: Join us for food, film, chats and weather permitting, a fire!
Sat 4th Feb, 4pm till late

For two weeks, Kneed: Ishwari Bhalerao and Leonie Rousham, will be using the gallery at Lewisham Arthouse as a research space – to read, chat, discuss, draw, bring, take and exchange thoughts, ideas, practices, critiques and support. As a starting point, we will feel our way through this research process, using terms Stretch, Resonance and Resilience – inspired by Ruth Wilson Gilmore. We will be using these as a way of understanding the role research has in cutting through the arts and cultural landscape in the UK. Often built on oppressive and exploitative models these institutions continue to employ extractive strategies; from funding structures heavily reliant on sources which fund oil, war and apartheid, to the co-option of marginalised people and spaces for private interest and profit… and so on…and so on…

Sean Roy Parker writes in his essay Vague Decay Now, ‘I’m not staring at the art but through it, at the labour, materials, hierarchies and supply chain logistics that go into its production’ – how do we place attention back onto the economy that surrounds the artwork? The things we make, the places we exhibit in, their makers, participants and audiences, exist within an economy. How can we place our attention back onto these everyday items, relationships, moves of hand, and ships and sales that are the ‘cultural scaffolding holding contemporary art up’ but often forgotten. By placing our attention back onto these interconnected structures, can this research process be an opportunity for the scaffolding to slowly come back into the foreground.

Scratching the Surface: Stretch, Resonance, Resilience, is a framework through which we think about the economy of things that are making up the art and its context- the low-waged, racialised, plastic, extractive, mass produced, the public and the private bureaucracies that helped us get here. How can we learn from and imagine liberated models of making, being in relationship with, sharing, collaborating and being artists?

Illegal Raves

The Deptford Central Library was closed down in June 1991 and after being vacant for some time the building soon became a venue for illegal raves leaving behind considerable damage to the building.

1st floor1

illegal raves

The Artists move in

1st floor2

After a long fought campaign from the local pressure group, The Friends of Deptford Library, the local authority agreed not to sell the building for redevelopment but to remain in community usage and in March 1994 Lewisham Arthouse moved in.

08 First floor studios 1994

During the first year the Arthouse members assisted with 2000 community hours through the Probation Service, providing £80,000 worth of renovation. The building is voluntarily maintained by Arthouse members through a work hours scheme.

Filmed on location

tale of a vampire

Unknown to some but Lewisham Arthouse was once used as a backdrop to film scenes for the feature length movie ‘Tale of Vampire‘ (1992).

Set in South London, this surreal and atmospheric low-budget film takes an interesting approach to the vampire genre by focusing almost exclusively on the emotions of its tormented central character: reclusive, intellectual vampire Alex (Julian Sands). Alex chooses to prey only on criminals and street derelicts, devoting more of his time to pursue a greater hunger for books on the occult, a passion surpassed only by his tragic love for a beautiful woman whom he lost to his ancient rival, the vampire-hunting Edgar (Kenneth Cranham)

Here are some production photos taken at the time whilst the film was being shot at the Lewisham Arthouse.

Tale of vampire 5 small

Tale of vampire 6 small

Tale of vampire 2 small

The full movie is available to watch online:

Tale of a Vampire (full movie)

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Lewisham Arthouse

Formely Deptford Central Library
Grade II listed, 1910 -1914 Designed by A. Brumwell Thomas (1868 -1948)

Front

A New Library

On 27th October 1905 a Public Libraries Service was opened in the former borough of Deptford. Andrew Carnegie promised a sum of £9000 for a central library and £4,500 each for two branch libraries. The present site was purchased for the central library in October 1909 for £5,600. Originally three shops stood here. Andrew Carnegie was again approached in August 1910 with a request to increase the funding. The final figure for the central library amounted to £12,000. In 1911 Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas won the commission for the design of the building. The tender of £12,418 was accepted in October 1913 and the work started at once. The foundation stone was laid on 5th April 1913 and the library eventually opened on 18th July 1914.

Building Design

building plan

The building is Edwardian Baroque based on the Classic Renaissance style. The facades are built in small Berkshire bricks with porticoes, entablature and balustrade in Portland stone. The main architectural order is Ionic and the portico with its eight columns forms the principal entrance to the building. An inscription to Andrew Carnegie, the donor, is carved in the stone panel over the doorway with a floral wreath and the lamp of knowledge at its head.

From the entrance, a wide corridor with a plaster vaulted ceiling leads to the ground floor (formerly the lending library). A massive marble staircase leads to the first floor (formerly the reference library) which includes colonnaded gallery with a glazed barrel-vaulted ceiling. The baroque revival for public buildings such as these flourished from 1896 to 1906. The years 1905 and 1906 may be regarded as the peak of the style.

Building Layout

The public rooms of the library were arranged on the ground floor and first floors. On the ground floor were the newspaper room (for 41 readers) and the periodical room (for 45 readers). Off the entrance hall was the main lending library arranged for an ‘open access’ system. There was shelf accommodation for about 20,000 volumes. On the same floor were the rooms for the sub-librarian, a store room and work room with a staircase leading to the staff mess rooms on the mezzanine and to the reference library bookstore. The marble staircase from the entrance hall led to the first floor where the reference library (for a maximum of 60 readers) was housed, the magazine room (for 48 readers) and auxiliary room for special exhibitions and lectures (seating 120 people). A book lift ran from the basement to the first floor.

The Architect

Brumwell

Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas (1868 – 1948) was born at Virginia Water in Surrey. His father, Edward Thomas, also an architect, was District Surveyor for Rotherhithe. After being articled to a little-known architect, WS Witherington, and attending Westminster Art School, he ran his own practice from 1894, at a small office in Piccadilly, in partnership with his father. He had added the name ‘Brumwell’ to make himself distinctive, and by 1899 his office was in the fashionable Queen Anne’s Gate. The Rotherhithe connection may have led to the son’s first major building, Addey and Stanhope School in New Cross Road (1898-9).

But competitions were the main avenue to success; in 1898 Thomas won the contest for Exeter Eye Hospital, and that same year he was catapulted from obscurity to fame in 1898, when he won the competition for designing the new City Hall for Belfast, one of the largest public buildings in the British Isles. It has huge Baroque porticoes, lavish marble interiors, and a central dome base on Wren’s domes at Greenwich. When it was completed in 1900, he was knighted, at the early age of 38. On the strength of Belfast, Thomas went on to become one of the most successful exponents of the Baroque Revival, which became the fashion for buildings of the early 1900s.

His other principal works were the Town Halls of Stockport (1903-8), and Woolwich (1899-1908), both also won in competition.

woolwich-town-hall-1903-5-remodelled-2011
(Woolwich Town Hall, Wellington St, Woolwich SE18 6HQ)

He also designed the Dunkirk and Belfast War memorials. However, by the 1920s Thomas’s extravagant style had become financially and aesthetically impossible; his only major building was Clacton-on-Sea Town Hall (1929-1931). He died on 22nd September 1948.

Then and Now

The inauguration of Deptford Central Library, on the 18th July 1914, took place a fortnight before the outbreak of World War I. Now missing, a carved oak plaque below a bronze base relief portrait read, ‘This Library is a gift of Andrew Carnegie’.

A good example of Classic Renaissance architecture, the building is Berkshire brick with a Portland stone façade in the Ionic order. Many original features remain including the oak front door, others have been replaced, such as the new oak side door, or restored like the barrel vaulted glazed roof on the first floor. The addition of the access ramp, realized with a grant from the Lewisham Council is also finished in Portland stone.

On the left of the entrance is the ‘workshop’ space an area used for multi-purpose activities – mixed media events, music rehearsals, life drawing and yoga classes as well as the Arthouse’s continuous programme of free workshops. To the right was the old library’s newsroom, later the children’s library, now a thriving gallery space, run entirely by Arthouse members.

Newsroom

The remainder of the ground floor was taken up with the open access lending library. As mixed media studios they are now occupied by a wide variety of artists including potters, sculptors and painters.

The marble staircase leads up to the first floor, which house the magazine room, reference library and librarian’s office. It is now used as studio space and, with its glazed roof, is ideal for painters. Two rear staircases, one either side of the building, lead to a photographer’s studio on the right, and communal kitchen on the left, both mezzanine floor level. The basement, originally comprising a large storage area, caretaker’s flat and a line of small rooms, now accommodates a variety of studios and a print workshop.

Paint and Plaster

The Deptford Central Library was closed down in June 1991. The vacant building suffered heavily from vandalism, attracted squatters and became a venue for illegal raves.

1st floor1
(first floor of the abandoned Deptford Library, left in considerable damage)

The damage in the first year was estimated at £70,000. The local pressure group, the Friends of Deptford Library, convinced the local authority that the building not be sold for redevelopment but remain in community usage and in March 1994 Lewisham Arthouse moved in.

During the first year the Arthouse members assisted with 2000 community hours through the Probation Service, providing £80,000 worth of renovation. The building is voluntarily maintained by Arthouse members through a work hours scheme. The Arthouse has also assisted in attracting funds to the building; the London Borough of Lewisham renovated the glazed roof, and improvements to the external security and the cleaning of the front of the building were met by Deptford City Challenge.

SONY DSC
(first floor studios, renovations to the glazed roof providing natural daylight)

A fundamental part of the ethos of the organization is to provide affordable studio space to artist in the early stages of their careers. Currently it has 45 spaces used by over 50 artists. It also runs regular course, classes and workshops.

Lewisham Arthouse is taking part in this year’s London Open House weekend but opens its studios to the public annually. Then next Open Studios event will take place
September 30th – October 1st 2017. It’s another opportunity for guest to personally meet our resident artists and discover more what goes on inside what was once the old Deptford Library now Lewisham Arthouse.

Open Studios 2017

Other Fiction

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2nd – 5th June, 2017

Other Fiction is an exhibition organised by three students currently enrolled on the MFA programme at Goldsmiths. The exhibition brings together three artists, that have diverse and wide ranging practices and methodologies, into the Lewisham Art House space, where they hope to create a dialogue between these different styles and approaches to their work.

The work is not unified by a mutual thematic narrative but rather address’s a multitude of different areas that overlap and have a shared concern about wider issues and subjects of interest such as place, memory, popular culture and alterity.

This synergy of diverse ideas and treatments is arranged and juxtaposed together in order to create a level of uniformity that also maintains the individual and unique characteristics of each work within a cohesive exhibition structure. The exhibition is made in the spirit of experimentation, it is without a fixed point of finality and showcases work that is open ended, adaptable and still in progress.

THE ARTISTS
PASCAL UNGERER works with a wide variety of media incorporating photography, painting, video, and sculpture in his art making process. He is primarily interested in themes based around social, geo-political or ecological issues.

JOE TWINN’S art practice spans a range of media, such as costume design, collage and painting but his primary concern is with the moving image. For the past two years he has been making short films, utilising lo-fi, D.I.Y special effects.

BYUNGCHAN KIM is a visual artist from South Korea who has recently relocated to London. He works in an interdisciplinary practice incorporating a wide variety of media. His work draws upon a range of diverse references from hip hop and popular culture to war, history, cultural appropriation and misinterpretation.

Opening night:
Friday 2nd June 2017
6pm

Exhibition continues:
2nd – 5th June 2017

Free entry
Step-free access


Curatorial Open 2017

Curatorial Open

Call for Submissions – Deadline Friday 9th June

Following the success of last year’s project Lewisham Arthouse is pleased to announce that applications are now open for the Curatorial Open Call 2017. Based in Deptford’s Grade 2 listed former library Lewisham Arthouse provides access to artist studios, workshops, exhibitions and learning. We are looking to build on our proud history of supporting artists, their audiences and the wider community by offering free use of our project space to an artist, curator or collective for a period of 5 weeks.

We are inviting proposals from an artist/curator or collective interested in working with us beyond traditional forms of exhibition making. This might include visual art, music, talks, screenings, educational events or other kinds of creative output. Lewisham Arthouse will provide in-kind support with promotional, logistical and practical concerns along with a production budget of £1000.

This is an opportunity to realise a concise and considered strand of programming (one off exhibitions will not be considered). The successful applicant will provide and implement an innovative program, focusing on audience engagement, participation and using the full potential of the space.

Please send a CV (1 side of A4 max), an introduction to your curatorial practice/approach (300 words max) and a proposal outlining your program and its intended outcomes (1 side of A4 plus images / supporting material). Please include one written reference and a completed copy of our equal opportunities form.

Download the Equal-Opportunity-Form

Deadline for applications: Friday 9th June

Interviews: Week commencing June 18th

Curatorial project: Wednesday 4th October – Tuesday 7th November

Please send your applications to:

Curatorial Open Call 2017,
Lewisham Arthouse
140 Lewisham Way
London SE14 6PD

Postal applications only

* Due to the high level of entries we are unable to give feedback to applicants not shortlisted for interview. If you would like your application or supporting materials returned to you please provide a stamped addressed envelope

For more information about Lewisham Arthouse please visit our website: www.lewishamarthouse.org.uk

Thanks and best wishes,

Lewisham Arthouse


What Happened Between?

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15th – 21st May, 2017

‘Between the secret interior and the public exterior, carrying items to trade: shared knowledge, a shoulder to cry on, insight, fun’ (Hannah Black)

We are Kerri Jefferis & Sophie Chapman and we have been lucky enough to hold the Graduate Studio Award at Lewisham Arthouse for the past year. We are sadly coming to the end of our tether, we mean tenure, and would love to invite you over one last time.

We would like to bring people together, to expose the unseen construction site, prop the supports and acknowledge overlaps, blind spots and differences. Support is usually ‘derided and discarded by authority and depoliticized by the mechanisms of it’ (Celine Condorelli/Gavin Wade) so we are especially OBSESSED with it. We want to take this time to appreciate what has happened, gather and share knowledge, references, materials, have the conversations that we haven’t yet had, and have a wee PARTY! It promises to be a bonanza.

‘In the spirit of coming together to take ourselves apart’ (Kyla Wazana Tompkins) throughout the week we will host the following:-

Monday 15th 6.30pm – 9pm : A SCREENING on social time, how we document & ask questions in/of it

Wednesday 17th 6.30pm – 9pm : A LETTER what writing, diaries & confessions do for history/theory/personhood

Friday 19th 7pm – 11pm : A GIG bringing bodies together to make noise! (unwieldy noise) shit-hot noise makers… NX Panther, Rainham Sheds, Molejoy and more TBC

Saturday 20th 1pm – 6pm : A HANGOUT & CHAT discussing what support structures allow for improvisation, intuition, sounding / listening, the particulars of shared endeavours & the complicated spaces between people – schedule TBA

‘Because they were listening to each other the room felt small’ (Chris Kraus)

Free entry
Step-free access


Soft Wax – Winner of the Arthouse Award

holler-2-softwax

We are pleased to announce Soft Wax as the winner of the Lewisham Arthouse Award for the Deptford X Fringe 2016.
The Soft Wax collective were selected by an anonymous panel of Arthouse members for their site specific, multi-media piece ‘Punky Reggae Party‘, staged over 2 venues and focusing on key events in local history and the life of our community. The outcome was an inspiring and immersive work and we look forward to seeing what Soft Wax will produce for their two week takeover of the Arthouse Project Space in March 2017, 6th to 20th.

Soft Wax is a loose collective led by Steve Wax. The main focus of their diverse output is cultures of resistance, taking inspiration from the popular music that embodies them. Alongside their project for Deptford X, Soft Wax recently staged an installation at The Museum of Club Culture in Hull for the Freedom Festival 2016 and Steve Wax has been at the helm of some of the UK’s best dub and reggae nights.

For more information regarding their forthcoming programme for the Arthouse please join our mailing list or keep an eye on the website.

V4V and FIRST

17th October 2014

V4V and FIRST

V4V launch their new album IN / OUT, an 8 CD-R realisation of the same shape/same details constantly re-configured one against another, like 3D chess. A limited edition of 300 with hand-made cover art.

V4V features DJ BPM (breaking out from the Grime mould for which her ResonanceFM radio show is increasingly acclaimed) building flickering ghost storms of sound, meshing with Vern Edwards’ serpentine cartoon guitar. Served on a bedrock of churning and fractured funk from the telepathic rhythmic architectures of Nick Doyne-Ditmas (bass guitar, flugelhorn) and Charles Hayward (drums).

FIRST: In a zone of it’s own with a lovely gallop, First keep the skin free from blemishes and the heart from aching 99.9 percent of the time. First are odd but familiar, animated and fruitfully nihilistic with no added sugar and using raw ingredients when possible. They are open from 7-11 at weekends and are not involved in any terrorist activity to speak of. Blisters, bliss and bananas, tender yet awkward nights at the disco. But don’t panic! First can also mean last…… to leave or to worry; it depends on context. Remember the first beak of a duck, crest of a wave and the first nib of a pencil and you’ll almost actually be there.

Link to Facebook page
Music Video “First – Unconsciousness/Happiness”
Music Video “First – Champagne With Sean Penn”

Entry £5

No bar bring your own refreshment

An Aggregate Material

Paul Crook, Rae Hicks, Hannah Hood, Abigail Jones, Emmie Mcluskey, Ian Parkin, Will Thompson and Mary Wintour
8th – 19th October 2014

An Aggregate Material

A group show by Garage Projects
www.g-a-r-a-g-e.co.uk

‘An aggregate material’ is the third in a sequence of an ongoing exhibition project by eight emerging artists from across the UK. Working under the name ‘Garage Projects’, they collectively look to create works that challenge, debate and comment on contemporary society, using the gallery space as a site to present our continuous discussion.

The title ‘an aggregate material’ refers to a composition of two or more substances that form a ‘sum’ or ‘mass’. Taking this term as a starting point, we would like to propose a collective mixed media exhibition that creates a cohesive structure, which prompts dialogue around the configuration of disparate material.

The title allows the work to be read by the viewer both collectively, as a presentation of artistic practice and independently, as individual narratives.

The artists participating are:
Mary Wintour
Ian Parkin
Abigail Jones
Hannah Hood
Paul Crook
Will Thompson
Emmie Mcluskey
Rae Hicks

Who Thinks The Future?

Josh Bilton, Darren Harvey-Regan, Jenny Moore, David Mabb, Steven Ounanian, Kate Pickering, Charlotte Warne Thomas
26th September – 5th October 2014

WhoThinksTheFuture

A Peer Sessions project coinciding with Deptford X, Art Licks Weekend and Lewisham Arthouse Open Studios

Curated by Tom Trevatt & Peer Sessions

Recently, there has been a resurgence in thinking the future. Not only what horrors it may hold, but how we might construct it. This important task had fallen out of favour over the last thirty years, a period of time that could be equated with a general repetition of the logic of the same. If we are now forced to think forward again, to find ways out of impending climate crises for example, we have to find new methodologies by which to construct our shared future. Perhaps the logics of contemporary art, a non-oriented, cyclical exercise, are inadequate for dealing with this project. However, equally, the modernist conditions under which the avant-garde appeared no longer exist. Thus new models need to be constructed. This exhibition asks whether the artist is a figure with whom these tasks can be carried out. Without assuming the privilege usually associated with this exceptional figure, we ask what role the artist has now, and what they should have in the future.

To engage in these questions we will adopt a methodology of synthetic thinking, practised as it is by Peer Sessions, to combine multiple ideas into complex wholes. This practice, something that art is capable of, could be utilised to connect and represent positions across a spectrum, enabling an ecology of ideas to be enacted or engendered. The exhibition will negotiate these concerns, attenuating them through art practice, and start thinking the future.

Talking about Contemporary Art

Free public widening-participation workshops to be held in the gallery, all welcome:

Friday 3rd October 3-4.30pm

Saturday 4th October 4-5.30pm

Sunday 5th October 4-5.30pm

Further information can be found at: peersessions.com
2014 Who Thinks the Future 2014-09-25 at 15.21.39

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WhoThinksTheFuture_4s

2014-09 Who Thinks the Future

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LOST PRAIRIE

by Rory Macbeth as part of Deptford X
Exhibition Dates: 27th September – 6th October 2013

During Deptford X, Rory Macbeth will be making a site-specific piece of work in response to the complexities of Lewisham Arthouse as a long-standing co-operative arts organisation.
His performance-driven practice has recently seen him translate a novel by Kafka with no understanding of the original language and no dictionary, write email excuses to a gallery for a poor art show of dog paintings, and to play Beethoven on piano in front of classical music audience, having never played piano before.

For his show at Lewisham Arthouse, Rory Macbeth has built 3 street billboards and rented the space out via a pubic advertising company, Outdoor Advertising Ltd, who have found 3 clients interested in advertising here as part of new publicity drives. As such, all three adverts are fully functioning current adverts, the same as the ones on the buses that drive past the Arthouse or that line local roads, and in this sense a sort of reversal of the ‘80s idea of billboards as a site for Art. Lost Prairie is also a direct response to the particular circumstances and history of the Lewisham Arthouse as an independent and autonomous space, with all the utopian advantages and nightmares that brings with it: forcing the corporate world into the co-operative’s hard-fought independent boundaries temporarily, in a sense to see who wins. Named after a half-remembered song lyric, Lost Prairie is romantic, hopeful, stupid, awkward, funny and wrong.

STAR GAZING LAZER CATS

Nicky Teegan
Exhibition Dates: 12th – 22nd September 2013

NickyTeegan_Star GazingLazerCats

Following a 6 month residency in Lewisham Arthouse, Nicky Teegan presents a collection of devotional objects, handmade oddities, sounds, texts and footage. Drawing from the every day, science fiction and local stories of mystical phenomena this exhibition will function as fiction rather than a hermetically sealed system of pedagogies.

Teegans’ work deals with the fanatical collecting of things. It specifically focuses on the fetishisation of everyday objects, outmoded technologies and found oddities and their subversion into devotional objects. It examines hidden meanings behind these devotional objects and rituals and their purpose. Underlying this, Teegans’ work draws from dystopian science fiction and ufo cults.

Alongside the exhibition was an event on 21 September, from 6pm. A dusk performative walk with the exhibition as a starting point. The two hour performance was a subversion of objects, science fiction and local stories of mystical phenomena, functioning as a fictional narrative and subverting the location and objects into a place of mystery. Tea and snacks were provided at the end.

NickyTeegan Tetra

NIckyTeegan Overview

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NickyTeegan 1

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