38 BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
From small seeds, planted and nourished in the right environment, great creative initiatives and communities can grow, as Veronica Simpson finds in the celebration of an outstanding, informal, south London arts institution
VERY RARELY DO we design writers get to experience a notable building, institution or space long after they have opened, to see what impacts they have had on their residents and stakeholders. But just such a happy occasion was provided at the South London Gallery (SLG) in March, with an event to celebrate continued – in fact, boosted – funding to run its pioneering Art Block outreach space, which has engaged, entertained, educated and inspired hundreds of local young children. It has run well over 1,000 supervised sessions over its eight-year lifespan, with most of the recipients coming from the surrounding Camberwell and Peckham area, which is listed among the UK’s 20% highest for deprivation. And, yes, having a decent-sized, dedicated space in which to conduct after-school activities that range from foosball to pottery, cooking to printing, is very much part of the magic. But so is the care and collaborative spirit with which the education and outreach team have decorated, kitted out and programmed this sequence of simple rooms, together with the youthful participants, at the foot of one of the Sceaux Estate tower
blocks behind this iconic London institution. Under the bold stewardship of its long-
standing director Margot Heller, the SLG has given first UK shows to many of the most exciting names in international and UK contemporary art, often long before the mainstream gets wind of their talent. But it’s the gallery’s commitment to art
education, and especially outreach to its local community, that helped to secure a joint win of the Art Fund Museum of the Year prize, back in 2020. Te judges called it a ‘world- class contemporary art space, built for and with its culturally diverse communities’, and praised it for ‘promoting inclusion at the heart of its mission’. Which is why there were so many of us, on a sunny spring morning, packed into one of their meeting rooms to hear that, at the end of a period of vital sponsorship from the Freelands Foundation, the gallery had secured a further two years of funding from the Bukhman Foundation, and enough of it so that Art Block can operate 52 weeks a year, rather than just during term time. Tis is game-changing, both for the team and how it
Left and far right The after-school sessions at the South London Gallery
operates, but also for the surrounding children and families, who benefit from its gentle stewardship towards creative self-expression. On the panel speaking at the event we
had Heller and Paul Crook, a former youth worker who heads the communities and learning activities, but also sound artist, Hannah Kemp-Welch, who has been working closely with Art Block to realise a project; it’s a major feature of the programme that the young people, aged 6-16, get to work with and alongside leading contemporary artists, to provoke their curiosity and experimentation. First, Kemp-Welch praised the sense of
ownership and engagement among the young participants. She said: ‘I do a lot of work in a lot of different places – with young children, older adults – and these young people really love Art Block. Tey feel excited about the space. Tey are always really looking forward to coming here.’ She’s a conceptual artist. So she was
wondering how to approach the commission. Her answer: ‘It’s about asking questions and testing new ideas, opening new areas of curiosity, thinking about sound as a material, testing possibilities.’ She chose a selection of moving image works and asked them to create a soundtrack. ‘Some people were immediately fascinated by the technology. So we just gave them free rein.’ One young participant immediately seized a microphone and started creating her own podcast. She was a natural. ‘Tere was a segment about telling their stories. I wanted to introduce them to analogue technology. So we made handheld radios. We did a session looking at what is a radio. How does sound travel through the air?’ Tey made their own radios, incorporating loo roll cones and wire, and we were shown footage of these youngsters walking around the estate holding their handheld radios as if
PHOTO: SOUTH LONDON GALLERY
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