What is a wall? Is it just the brick wall or a fence at the end of the garden or something else? We are surrounded by walls, walls to keep us safe like the Thames barrier, or to keep others out or in like The Tower of London. Then there are the walls of culture, religion, and language that may divide us or bring us together. Once we start to think about walls we start to see how they can and do affect our lives and who we are.
Wall
A multimedia community arts
project by
Eltham Arts
Eltham Arts invites you to look and think about the walls that may surround you, acknowledge them and express your views through a creative form. It can be music, writing, visual art, craft, theatre, digital, painting, collage or any other creative form.
www.elthamarts.org
WALL EXHIBITION
The voice and vision of the community
It is Eltham Arts fifth anniversary and it is perhaps fitting that this project is perhaps the most ambitious that we have undertaken.
It aimed to be an opportunity for all members of our community, individuals , schools, or groups to join in with a project which encourages imaginative and creative thinking.
It is about our response to the walls that we build both physically, culturally and mentally. It is about the materials and textures of the walls around us. It's about the past, present, and future, wherever we are from, or it could be about our relationship with the materials that make the world around us. In exploring through Art what walls are and what they do we can gain insights to the world we live in and the community of which we are a part.
To ensure everyone could participate the wall project is a multimedia project, made up of a number of separate projects that come together in this exhibition. Over a thousand people have contributed to this project with poems short stories, music, painting bricks, ceramics or songs
It didn't matter if they were professional artist what mattered was joining together to create an expression of our community. We asked the community to come forward with ideas and this is the result.
Pragya is a collage artist and has explored the theme Wall through a series of visual arts workshops. She invited members of the community to address the walls around them by designing their own bricks for an art installation.
She worked with John Wingham from Eltham Arts to put all elements of Wall project, including bricks from the community, into an art installation which were exhibited in SE9 Container gallery in September 2018. More information ...
The project is led by Gaynor Wingham and Miriam Storey.
The project encourages members of the community to take up a short story or poetry writing challenge to reflect their views about walls they acknowledge around them.
The winning entries were complied and published into a book.
The theme is represented by few photographers who are exploring the theme.
Wall: The structure of existence - Photographer Sandra Marques presented a botanical wall project. She is explored the cellular structure of plants and the importance of walls in a plant’s life.
My Wall – Photographer Elisabeth Isitor captured stories of local people by taking pictures of them against walls.
Connecting Walls – Photographer Robert Piwko produced a series photomontages about political walls.
Wall project Partners and Participants:
Wall project is supported by or in partnership with various
arts and community organisations including:
Local primary schools (including Haimo Primary School,
Wyborne Primary School, Middle Park Primary School), GLL Better libraries in Eltham & New Eltham, St Thomas More School, SE9 Container Gallery, Eltham Palace, Gerald Moore Gallery, El Recreo Spanish Club, Hooked on Crochet, Community Association of New Eltham, Artiday, John Paul O’Neill (Farrago Poetry), Robert Piwko Photography, Elisabeth Isitor Photography, Sandra Marques, Bruce Jerram, Hulviz theatre group, Royal Borough of Greenwich, FolkMob, Bob Hope Theatre, Cultural Connection, Visit Greenwich, Greenwich Visitor.
The Wall project engaged various artists in the community to express the theme through different art forms. There are creative challenges set up as a part of the project to encourage participation from all ages within the SE9 area.
