First Thursdays is back with two really exciting options for tonight! You can either follow this month’s walking route around the East End or join us for a free entry after-hours programme of screenings, DJ sets, workshops and talks at Whitechapel Gallery as part of the day’s discussions at the Climate Crisis >> Art Action conference. For the Gallery’s event, you can find details at the bottom of the page or you can ask further information to our info-desk staff.
If you are interested in the Walking Route, the first stop of tonight will be Raven Row (open until 8pm)with a brilliant exhibition titled People Make Television. Raven Row re-opens after a five year hiatus with an exhibition of DIY television from the 1970s. Remarkably, much of this emerged from a fringe department of the BBC – the Community Programme Unit (CPU). Set up in 1972, the CPU provided a camera crew and studio, and handed over complete editorial control, to groups and individuals with ‘voices, attitudes and opinions’ hitherto ‘unheard or seriously neglected’, so they could make their own programmes. This exhibition features over 100 Open Door programmes (from a total of 243), almost none of which have been seen since their original broadcast. This raw, often formally inventive television comprises a vivid archive of social history, and direct testimony of the concerns and struggles of a tumultuous decade.
The second stop will be Studio 1.1 (open until 9pm) with their Annual Members’ Shows – This Year’s Model Part II. The ehxibition encompasses a great variety of works from the following artists: Eugenia Cuellar, Matthew Herring, Nicole Price, Daniella Norton, Sandra Lane, Phil Woodward, Kate Jacob, Olivia Irvine, Tracey Downing, Caroline Killoury, Liz Griffiths, Michele Marcoux, Pauline Hall, Danny Purtill, Vanessa Mitter, Sharon Swaine, Amanda Benson, Playpaint, Dominic Blower, Tamsin Morse, Dan Davis, Esmond Bingham, Geoff Titley, Ute Kreyman, Emma Coop.
The third and last stop of the night will be at Filet Space (open until 8pm) for Forces of the Small: Project for an Artwork Compacted and Condensed. For this exhibition some 130 individuals have each contributed a single work whose sole criteria is that it occupy a space no larger than 7.5 x 10.5 x 7.5 centimetres. No other rules apply, with artists having free reign in terms of medium, production, and idea. Every work submitted has been displayed, provided it adheres to the stipulated restriction on size. While the majority of contributors are MA Fine Art students at Camberwell College of Arts and are mostly at the beginning of their practice or career, their tutors and technical staff are also represented in this show. A further dozen artists from outside the college have been invited to submit works. The broader picture given here thereby ranges from the “student artist” to practitioners who regularly exhibit in established galleries. Forces of the Small is a playful microcosm of artistic production at the present time.
Climate Crisis >> Art Action Takeover:
Join us at Whitechapel Gallery for an after-hours programme that follows the day’s discussions at the Climate Crisis >> Art Action conference. Have a drink at the bar, enjoy DJs, film, a talk and a workshop, exploring art, ecology and sustainability. Featuring a live soundscape by artist and DJ Chooc Ly Tan, DJ sets from AGOSTINO, Misha Faulty and Tropical Waste as well as a workshop on climate data mapping with artist and curator Angela YT Chan, a book launch with Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade, the editors of Oceans, the latest anthology in the Documents of Contemporary Art series, with guest speakers Kasia Molga and curator Bergit Arends, plus films by Zadie Xa and Ruth MacLennan.
