May 12, 2018, 11am
“The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is… one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” –David Harvey
An international forum on art marking in the city with Simone Browne, Luis Camnitzer, Adelita Husni-Bey and Koyo Kouoh
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
How can we re-imagine the communities we live in? What does social practice in arts education look like today? As London neighbourhoods continue to feel the effects of austerity and gentrification, the Serpentine presents Rights to the City?, a one-day forum at Conway Hall on Saturday, May 12, where artists, organisations and practitioners from around the world will gather to explore the place of social and political activity in art-making.
50 years after the worldwide protests of 1968 and the publication of Henri Lefebvre’s influential book, Le droit à la ville, the forum launches a six-month series of public workshops and events. Free and open to all, this programme will reflect on the Serpentine’s own legacy of co-commissioning projects with communities, artists and activists and will ask how arts education can contest the increasingly privatised and commodified social and public space in cities.
Participants include long-time Serpentine collaborators and international guests: Luis Agosto-Leduc, Barby Asante, Ain Bailey, Yogesh Barve, Simone Browne, Luis Camnitzer, Clark House Initiative, Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Adelita Husni-Bey, Jasleen Kaur, Koyo Kouoh, Gail Lewis, Saviya Lopes, Paul Maheke, Julia Morandeira, Jesus “Bubu” Negron, Amol K Patil, Sondra Perry, Emily Pethick, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Sumesh Sharma, Patricia Thomson, Mick Wilson, Jo White from the Portman Early Childhood Centre, Mia White and Rehana Zaman.
Over the past ten years, Serpentine Education and Projects has worked on redefining the role of the arts during periods of social change, addressing issues such as migrant rights, care, schooling and labour with individuals and groups excluded from the decision-making processes that shape the places where they live and work. Through sustained, community-centred and embedded projects that focus on areas local to the Serpentine Galleries in Kensington and Westminster, participants have realised their power and have developed strategies to change their lives, their cities and their world.
The Rights to the City? programme will ask questions including: what does it mean to continue a research-led, self-generating, long-term embedded practice with artists in the city? How do we create networks of support and solidarity among artists, educators, activists, children and young people? What can we learn from the experimental, the socially marginal and the small scale? How can working across disciplines and shifting how we learn, where we learn and who we learn with, deepen our understanding of the cities, enabling us to listen, disrupt and change?
All events and workshops in the series are free and open to all, except for the forum on May 12, which is ticketed, available from Ticketweb. Booking is required for all events at the Rights to the City? website.
Full programme
Saturday, May 12: Rights To The City? Forum, Conway Hall, London WC1R, 11am–9pm
Sunday, May 13: Implicated Theatre: An Open Theatre of the Oppressed workshop with Frances Rifkin, Arts Admin, London E1, 11am-5pm
Tuesday, May 15: Dark Sousveillance: a workshop with Sondra Perry, Mia White and Simone Brown, Arts Admin, London E1, 12-5pm
Thursday, May 24: The Perfect School? workshop with Paul Maheke, Serpentine Galleries, 6–8pm
Saturday, June 23: Here is the Place: larping for educators with Adam James, Greenside Community Centre, London NW8, 1–5pm
Monday–Friday, July 9–13: The Summer Studio: Zinzi Minott, Serpentine Galleries, London W2, 10:30am and 1:15pm (for school groups)
Wednesday, July 4: Play as Radical Practice workshop with Albert Potrony, Portman Early Childhood Centre, London NW8, 5–7pm
Saturday, September 29: Community Family Day, Portman Early Childhood Centre, 1–5pm