I will be showing my new film 'The Flower Of Nature' at 'Hydracity - Towards Watery Commons' an Exhibition from 10th September – 26th September at the Thames-Side Studios Gallery with a programme of walks, performances, and interactive artworks curated by InspiralLondon.
Hydracity asks us to observe and imagine London and its hinterland as watery environment, by inviting artists to re-experience this fluid, shifting and untameable environment. What is it that circulates beneath our feet oozing from the muddy delta of the Thames as we explore the interconnected labyrinth of watery commons intersecting urban spaces, that flow across, through and into us?
This exhibition will focus on our experience of these watery commons while exploring fluid collective co-creation. You are invited to collaborate in this artistic project to reimagine the city as a watery ecosystem. By re-evaluating the city as a space shaped by water, we’ll track the nature and extent of the radical changes wrought on the valley’s watery arteries, while creating alternative visions, and understandings.
Hydracity also re-imagines the city’s river system as slowly evolving tentacled organism, much like a hydra’s looping locomotion. By observing water – its capacity to merge fluidity and solidity – we can see it as a regenerative resource and even a metaphor for shifting times. This ever-changing environment of the aqueous commons reflects something of the hydra-like city, whose ability to rejuvenate offers overlapping narratives for this complex watery labyrinth. For the exhibition at Thames-side Gallery InspiralLondon creates a unique sculptural labyrinth map that interacts with other activities, archives, experiences and with potential walks across the city.
Artists, artist groups and collectives have been invited to contribute to Hydracity, by coming together in this search for our watery commons. The exhibition launches a number of specially commissioned public artworks that includes Hydrodetours guided walks; performances; sound and sculptural installation; performative lectures; films and an interactive watery archive. Together, making alternative narratives for places, people and the landscape within London’s Thames basin by immersing ourselves in different ways of understanding the city’s waterways, and in experiencing the complex ecosystems and surprising biodiversity sustained by them.
InspiralLondon’s Hydracity is an artistic exploration of London’s urban environment and ecology through on the ground mapping with the aim to create a network of alternative histories, stories and experiences of the commons. This collective art project is an opportunity for artists to re-imagine the Thames Delta as a fluid and dream-like ecosystem, unpredictable, ever shifting and dissolving and ultimately mysterious.
Will Brook, Ben Coode-Adams, Richard Couzins, John Churchill, Sarah Doyle, Gail Dickerson, Charlie Fox, Mikey Georgeson, Rachel Gomme, Kadeem Graham, Calum F Kerr, Miyuki Kasahara, Milda Lembertaite, Morris & Mollett, Clare Qualmann, Anne Robinson, Alke Schmidt, Sarah Sparkes, Fiona Spirals, Ian Thompson.
Participating artist collectives, community groups and other organisations:
Art of the Magic Lantern; Blackwater Polytechnic; Bow Gamelan Ensemble; counterproductions; Clockhouse Community; East End Jam; Everyone Welcome Collective; HAAG; Hotel du Nord; le Collectif des Gammares; Kinetika: London Geodiversity Partnership; Metropolitan Trails; Platform; soundcamp.
Hydracity - Towards Watery Commons is part of a larger InspiralLondon project to explore and map the hidden, lost or undervalued watery commons of London and the Thames Valley Delta. Inspirallondon’s unique Hydrodetours Walks Programme runs from 30 August-26 September 2021.
To book event tickets for any of the walks and events go here
