Curated by William McLucas

107 High Street, Sugar House Island, Stratford, E15 2RB

PV: Thursday, 12th December, 6 – 9pm
Open: 13th December 2024 – 18th January 2025

The collective have varied modes of making including writing, sculpture and spatial intervention. Their practices have strong connections through their use of archives, utilitarian references or found material.

Their practices have converged through the consideration of archival practices and architectural intervention as alternate modes of artistic production, as well as engaging with spacial politics and thinking about the participatory role an audience takes within art environments, beyond the passive process of presenter-spectator. Through an ongoing project with Newham Heritage about the Beckton Gasworks, some of them have been working towards an exhibition conducting research in the Newham Archive and the Eastside Community Heritage archive.

The exhibition will engage with material from local archives in Newham as a starting point for a site specific inquiry into themes of obsolescence, collective memory and deindustrialisation. Stratford is of interest due to the change it has undergone in a short timeframe and its layered histories. Artists involved will choose how to respond to the archive and site, whether creating work that relates to the site or more generally to archival practices. The responses to the area may be a direct inquiry into a specific business, building or one of the areas former industries (eg flour, sugar, textiles).