Open House Festival 2022
It’s been another fantastic year of Open House Festival, and with this year’s programme extended to two weeks, there was more time to squeeze in as much as we could.
Continue reading to see just some of our highlights (and you might be able to catch a few of them before they close their doors!)
Beyond Beck Road
Hackney’s Beck Road is a hub of creativity, establishing itself as a centre for artistic creation in the 1970s. By the 1980s, resident artists began exhibiting individually at home, and later came together to present open studios with up to 16 artists.
For Open House 2022, Beck Road present a community arts event, Beyond Beck Road, showcasing the far-ranging creative work happening in Beck Road and beyond, and presenting individual and collective artists connected to the street and its environs.
A street of renters, social housing, homeowners and artist studios, the community has come together to show their passion for the street, its heritage, and the people who sustain it, mixing painting, sculpture, film, installation and performance in studios, on pavements, house facades and windows – a celebration of the arts and what they can bring to a neighbourhood.
Artists and their families living on Beck Road, E8 in 1988, a street previously slated for demolition.
Photo: Edward Woodman
Golden Lane Estate
In the middle of the nineteenth century, over 130,000 people resided in the City of London, but by 1952 that number had dropped to just 5,000. Residents who had lost their homes as a result of the World War II bombings were re-housed in areas outside the city, however, the City Corporation was concerned about the depopulation of the City, and turned its attention to this when planning the rebuilding of the City in the post-war era.
In July 1951, the City Corporation announced the competition to design an estate on Golden Lane – a site devastated by bombing – using high density, low-cost modern housing.
Designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the estate’s maisonette blocks are faced with eye catching panels in primary colours, and take influence from the work of Le Corbusier in its approach to create an estate as an urban microcosm.
Art in Perpetuity Trust
It was an inspiring visit to APT Studios, whose mission is to support creative thought and artistic vision both in the studio and in the wider world.
Founded in 1995 by a group of artists, APT provides 42 secure studios for visual artists, a contemporary art gallery, a working sculpture yard and an external public performance space on the banks of Deptford Creek.
Brigitte Parusel (left) explores geometric principles in an experimental way, with her work including large-scale metal installations, delicate bamboo structures and projections of digitally produced constructions.
Constructing in various materials including wood, steel, Perspex and rope, Sheila Vollmer (right) explores line, form, space, rhythm and mood within a systematic process of making. The structure of the work, the nature of the material, the methods of making and gravity are all interdependent.
These artists are ones to watch!
Red Door Studios
An artist-run, community-focused space that has offered affordable artist studios since 2011, it was great to discover Red Door Studios.
Built around 1893 and adjacent to Almshouses, the building has previously been used as a bakery and later a laboratory glassware in the late 1950s, before establishing itself as Red Door Studios – a hub of creativity in East Ham.
Alongside their artist studios, they also have a great programme of events (and a delicious cafe) – be sure to drop by.
We also loved popping in to a few other gems along the way…
so don’t miss your chance this year – open until Wednesday 21st!
Greenwich Design District | East Ham Library
