Drawing in Social Space: Building Community and Connections
- Written byRenee Odjidja, Kelly Chorpening, Misty Ingham
- Published date 24 November 2023
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Central to the ethos of Camberwell College of Arts is the commitment to driving social impact through community-based activity. From building creative economy ties between Ghana and the UK, to co-designing with the local community in Peckham, the College is dedicated to nurturing meaningful relationships with communities locally, nationally and internationally.
Drawing in Social Space, an 18-month knowledge exchange partnership between Camberwell College of Arts’ Fine Art courses and Drawing Room, is no exception. Fine Art students were involved from the following specialisms: BA (Hons) Fine Art: Drawing, BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting, BA (Hons) Fine Art: Computational Arts and BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture.
Conceived by Kelly Chorpening, former Programme Director of Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts, the partnership explores drawing in social contexts, as artists, globally, harness the medium's accessibility, affordability, and portability to create impactful statements in public and collaborative settings. The partnership was fully developed and led with Renee Odjidja, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art and Misty Ingham, Drawing Room’s Project and Partnerships Curator.
Beginning in May 2022, multiple collaborations have taken place exploring the potential of drawing to create conditions for dialogue, exchange, translation and connections. The work produced from these projects, including a range of artworks, zines, photographs, films and ephemera, can be viewed at the Drawing in Social Space exhibition, currently showing at Drawing Room’s new gallery in Bermondsey until 10 December 2023.
We explore 3 of the projects that connected internationally based artists, students and Drawing Room’s local South East London community partners, to examine how drawing has been reimagined as a tool for thinking, discovery, storytelling, communication and building connections.
Project 1 Collaboration: Students from Camberwell College of Arts BA Fine Art courses, Mujeres Creando and Young Girlz Matter, 2 May – 6 June 2022
Project 1 brought together students from BA Fine Art courses, members of Bolivian women’s collective Mujeres Creando and Young Girlz Matter, a self-formed collective of female teenagers from South Bank University Academy, to explore how drawing can be a tool for advocacy and powerful expression around female inequality.
Mujeres Creando uses satire to problematise ways in which women’s bodies are sexualised within patriarchal, Catholic society in South America, using cartoons, slogans and installations to help create a space for productive debate. Over 6 weeks, the groups spent time connecting and exploring what it means to be part of a collective, reflecting upon the processes of Mujeres Creando through: drawing workshops, visits to Camberwell College of Arts, walks, games and sharing local knowledge and food. The students supported the project curators in planning and facilitating the sessions, gaining experience in workshop delivery and working outside the university in different settings. These shared processes of co-creation and exchange became tools for developing confidence around drawing and building bridges when undisclosed conflict amongst the girls emerged.
Activities ultimately led to the display of large-scale drawings near the girls’ school in South East London, and the creation of a zine.
Speaking about her experience of the project, Zahira – a member of Young Girlz Matter, said: “I feel like part of this group – I can’t describe why, it’s just a feeling. Like a colourful jaw breaker, with many layers like an onion. We are multifaceted.”
Project 2 Collaboration: Students from Camberwell College of Arts BA Fine Art courses, artist, Gluklya, and Parents & Communities Together (PACT), 1 November 2022 – 29 March 2023
Project 2 involved a collaboration between students from BA Fine Art courses, Years 1-3, and the Southwark-based Citizens UK community-support project Parents and Communities Together (PACT), and Gluklya, a Netherlands-based Russian artist.
Gluklya’s work acknowledges an alignment between the artist’s tool and the worker’s tool. For her, ‘unproductive time’ under capitalism – activities that involve exploring, listening and drawing – become small but important acts of resistance. Gluklya set a brief for the students to communicate stories about South London. They worked to uncover narratives local to Peckham, creating a broad range of layered, multidisciplinary artworks. They then developed this work further through workshop proposals to PACT mothers, before delivering them at PACT sessions.
In a workshop led by Gluklya, the students and PACT created a unique, immersive space of drawings through improvised movements, highlighting how drawing and movement can support wellbeing. 2 Fine Art students participated in 4-month Diploma Professional Studies and course unit placements with Drawing Room on the project. They undertook research, received mentoring from Drawing Room’s curator, Misty Ingham, on socially engaged projects and learned how to build positive links with communities.
Speaking about the collaboration, Year 2 BA Fine Art: Drawing student, Shaowei Lai reflects: “I felt a strong sense of community and connections through the activity”, while Year 3 BA Fine Art: Painting student Severina Dico-Young added “I learnt how galleries are structured and how to plan workshops. Moreso, I began to understand the importance of reflecting upon my work, as well as how to be confident within myself, my skills, and abilities.”
From this collaboration, the placement students co-designed a zine in dialogue with the project curators.
Project 3 Collaboration: Al Hassan Issah, Camberwell Fine Art students and The Blue Youth Bermondsey, 1 – 30 April 2023
For project 3, students from BA (Hons) Fine Art: Drawing teamed up with Ghanaian artist, Al Hassan Issah to work with children aged 9-14 from the Blue Youth Club in Bermondsey. Al Hassan Issah’s practice explores the symbols and patterns of gates in his country to comment on societal divisions, legacies of colonialism, material histories, theatricality and objecthood. His mission, with the support of Camberwell students, was to inspire children in South London to explore their personal identity through a gate design of their own.
Over 3 days, the youth centre became an active studio where children made sketches and rubbings alongside Al Hassan on Zoom, as he worked in his studio in Kumasi. Responding to the question ‘Is it the materials that lead you to the city, or the city that leads you to the materials?’, the young people embarked on an exploration of Bermondsey, including Drawing Room’s new site. Using the austere, grey entrance gate as a focus to draw, the group questioned, documented and discussed the changes they would instate to make it welcoming and accessible to the public. Through drawings and collages, new gate designs were produced and displayed locally – on fences, doors, walls, in shops, markets and bus stops. Simultaneously, Al Hassan placed printed copies of the young people’s work on notice boards and walls in Kumasi, exploring the idea of public art, both locally and internationally. Simrandeep Chana, a Year 2 BA Fine Art: Drawing student involved in the project, wrote an essay exploring how culture is addressed in Al Hassan’s practice, while Sheniz Elmaz-Golding, a Year 2 BA Fine Art: Drawing student wrote a poem about Bermondsey, inspired by her conversations with the young people. Al Hassan in response created three artworks and a poem, featured in the exhibition. Students and curators worked collaboratively with Year 3 BA Illustration student, Alicja Orzechowska to design the project zine.
The Drawing in Social Space exhibition is displaying work until 10 December 2023.