To Be Here With You embraces practices of ritual to create a space of shared knowledge, gentle hospitality and open collectivity. Situated at Southwark Park Galleries and engaging with the surrounding park, the project consists of five free workshops. Artists have been invited to each develop a workshop that begins with an exploratory walk in the park, followed by guided activities in Lake Gallery’s Salter Space. Each session opens a pathway for audiences to appreciate the spaces we inhabit, to rediscover the spiritual aspects of nature, and to value our intimate rituals as something sacred.
To Be Here With You is a project facilitated by students from the Royal College of Art, MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme, as part of the Graduate Projects 2023, in partnership with Southwark Park Galleries.
Programme //
Gathering: Saturday 22 April, 2–4pm
Gail Dickerson invites you to create personal maps of the park through the layering of natural, foraged materials, prompting new ways of ‘seeing’ the local environment.
Activating: Sunday 23 April, 2–4pm
Using everyday materials found in the park, Rie Nakajima invites you to construct musical sculptures and play these together to make a soundtrack that appreciates the mundane and the overlooked.
Infinitely: Saturday 29 April, 2–4pm
Alice May will guide you through various artistic processes in the park, from tree-hugging, to listening, writing and making. These experiences will be used as inspiration to produce a collaborative mural that explores our creative connection to the park and to each other.
Tenderly: Sunday 30 April, 2–4pm
Dancer Rudzani Molaya, working with Yewande 103‘s Phoenix Score, will lead you through a series of choreographed movements to connect your senses and the psycho-geography of the park, drawing on Black histories, mental health and the symbolism of water.
Greening: Friday 5 May, 11am–1pm
Hannah Lees and May Hands invite you to connect with ideas and practices of collective making through weaving, stitching and sculpting with locally foraged materials.
Friday’s workshop is specially designed for families and young children. All children must be accompanied by an adult. Please wear suitable clothing for foraging and creative activities.
To Be Here With You is curated by Ghost Collective: Marjian Tsatsaros Tyagi, Julia Jiang, Ana Escoto, Youjia Qian, Chuqing Feng, Caspar Danuser, Esther Liu, Sophie Nowakowska and Nathan Yeomans.
