An online showcase of work in progress from RAFTS, Rory Pilgrim’s Radio Ballads commission
Taking the raft as a symbol of support, escape and journey, Rory Pilgrim’s RAFTS project engages with social services and community groups across Barking and Dagenham. The project invites people to consider changes in technology, the environment, and now the global pandemic, exploring what a ‘raft’ is for them, especially in times of change and uncertainty.
The RAFTS Showcase brings together members of Green Shoes Arts in Barking and Dagenham, London with Project Well Being, an Interfaith Homeless Shelter, Boise, Idaho. Sharing conversations, stories and poetry generated in workshops so far, the afternoon will focus on the symbol of a raft during times of crisis. Working with questions such as ‘what supports and sustains us in moments of change and transition?’ and ‘what keeps us connected?’ we will contemplate what we might need to navigate the future.
Contributions will also include music developed for RAFTS by Rory Pilgrim and singer-songwriter Robyn Haddon. The RAFTS Showcase is presented in partnership with L.I.S.T.E.N, a month-long mental health and arts festival initiated by Green Shoes Arts.
Radio Ballads is part of the Serpentine Galleries Civic Projects programme.
Commissioned in partnership with New Town Culture, a Cultural Impact Award-winning project, part of London Borough of Culture, a Mayor of London initiative.
This event will be closed captioned and BSL interpreted.
Accessibility: If there are any access needs you’d like us to consider, please email elizabethg@serpentinegalleries.org
Duration: 2 hours/ 15 minute break
Radio Ballads
To mark the anniversary of the 1970 Equal Pay Act and the momentum for change created by the Dagenham Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968, Serpentine Galleries and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham are partnering to develop a series of collaborative artist residencies and commissions that will examine the future and histories of work, called Radio Ballads.
The original Radio Ballads were produced by musicians Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, working with radio producer Charlie Parker to make a series for the BBC, focussing on workers’ experiences and issues. The original series of eight one-hour Radio Ballads revolutionised radio documentary and were broadcast by the BBC from 1957–64. A combination of song, music, sound effect and recorded voice, each Radio Ballad presented a view on the working lives of British people.
The Radio Ballad‘s commissions will be shared publicly in London in the summer 2021. More information about these artworks and events will be shared as the projects unfold.
The commissioned artists: Sonia Boyce, Helen Cammock, Rory Pilgrim and Ilona Sagar.
Rory Pilgrim
Rory Pilgrim (Bristol, 1988) works in a wide range of media including songwriting, composing music, film, music video, text, drawing and live performances. Centred on emancipatory concerns, Pilgrim aims to challenge the nature of how we come together, speak, listen and strive for social change through sharing and voicing personal experience. Strongly influenced by the origins of activist, feminist and socially engaged art, Pilgrim works with others through a different methods of dialogue, collaboration and workshops. In an age of increasing technological interaction, Rory’s work creates connections between activism, spirituality, music and how we form community locally and globally from both beyond and behind our screens. Solo Shows include: Between Bridges, Berlin (2019) Andriesse-Eyck Gallery, Amsterdam NL (2018), South London Gallery (2018), Rowing, London (2017), Plymouth Art Centre, Plymouth (2017), Flat Time House, London (2016), Site Gallery, Sheffield (2016) and sic! Raum für Kunst, Luzern CH (2014). In 2019, Pilgrim was the winner of the Prix de Rome.
Partners
Green Shoes Arts exists to inspire local people to make positive changes through the arts. We are a passionate team of arts facilitators who work with people of all age groups from all communities living in Barking and Dagenham. Green Shoes seeks to make arts accessible to all and promotes the many benefits that being involved in the arts can bring.
Interfaith Sanctuary Shelter serves people of all genders, races, religions, and sexual orientation, as well as families with children, by providing safe overnight emergency shelter and practical services to transition out of homelessness. Project Well Being offers us a safe place for acceptance, stability, and growth. Connection, support, and well being are our foundation.
Barking Dagenham Youth Dance is one of London’s leading providers of youth dance workshops, community arts events and career pathway activities, offering weekly dance and fitness sessions for hundreds of children and young people. BDYD also runs Bar-Ham Leaders, a youth action programme, that encourages teenagers to learn the skills to communicate their views and suggestions, with the aim to influence policy and government.
LBBD Hostel Services team provides accommodation and support for nearly 200 families and single people. We also assist with the transition in a permanent home in the private sector. We make the most of the best services provided by both the council and voluntary sector to ensure the families can access services to maintain their financial and personal well being.
The White House was set up in 2016 on Dagenham’s Becontree estate by Create London. We invite artists to live and work in the house, exploring new ways to collaborate with the local community, by becoming their neighbours. We host a public programme led by residents that ranges from poetry to painting to gardening. Our programme acts as a tool to address social, political and culturally relevant issues to our site and community, adopting approaches that challenge traditional hierarchies and aim to democratise decision-making across programming and how we run the house.
New Town Culture
Radio Ballads is part of New Town Culture – a pioneering programme of artistic and cultural activity taking place in adult and children’s social care across the entire borough. This is a Cultural Impact Award winning project, part of London Borough of Culture, a Mayor of London initiative. New Town Culture responds to the incredible stories, knowledge and skills of the residents of Barking and Dagenham, delivering a programme of workshops, exhibitions, radio broadcasts, live performances and courses targeted at people using social care services in our borough. Working closely with social care professionals and artists, the project hopes to unlock the value of art and culture for all our communities. Its ambition is to support social workers and carers to try out new ways of working to enhance the brilliant work they already do
