Some[w]Here




Some[w]Here is a contemporary arts project led by the drawing shed. It took place from November 2014 until June 2015 on the housing estates of Carey, Patmore and Savona in Nine Elms, Wandsworth, an area located at the shadow of the Battersea Power Station Development.

Throughout Some[w]Here I experienced a lot of questioning and resistance. My participation consisted in performative interventions around the area, and also in conversations with the other participants and people that live in the estates.



Light Trap (walking)
Durational performance
December 2014
Patmore Estate
Image by Bobby Lloyd

When I crossed paths with someone I made direct eye contact. I should add that to do this I also used the eye hanging on my chest. Some people smiled, some averted my gaze. When I didn't encounter anyone, I played at observing details of my surroundings through the eye hanging on my chest. I wanted to get a sense of being able to trap or see these images through my body, my torso, my solar plexus. A form of synaesthetic awareness. I wanted to focus on details: windows, rabble.

When the sun came out I could trap the light on the surface of my eye mirror, I could make that light reflect in an intense burst, specially when it bounced off the surface of reflective signs on the street (No Parking, No Crossing). These bursts of light seemed to immediately attract attention, either to the burst itself and the reflection, or to me. I felt a sense of awe at the power of the simple effect of sunshine on mirror. I found it playful and beautiful and it allowed me to direct the light onto the surface of the architecture around me, enabling me to draw, through the movement of my body and the reflection, invisible traces of light only comprehensible as a sequence in the present moment.

What I didn't perceive until later was how my presence and the outburst of light reflected on the signs seemed also a form of aggression. A group of kids felt intimidated by it, as if it was a direct attack on their eyes. They came up to me, hesitantly, and shouted at a distance: "Are you mad?" "Do you want to hurt us?".



Precarious Vehicle (FT series)
January 2015
Savona Estate


I made this. It was intended to be a vehicle. For the vehicle to be mobile I had to be inside it and walk around. When I did this I could not see where I was going. The vehicle and I became an inadequate moving assemblage. I discarded the vehicle. It remained largely ignored. I watched people ignore it and kick it about. Somehow this completed something. I don't know what it is that was completed.


Precarious Structures in Financial Times (FT series)
2015
Digital print


About Some[w]Here


During Some[w]Here’s research phase, the drawing shed artists Bobby Lloyd and Sally Labern, with performance artists Jordan McKenzie and Daniella Valz Gen and supported by Esther Carolin, Holly Smith and Anna Viani, explored the history of the area, including the old soap factories, and learning from older people living on the estates about how go-carting (using soap boxes) lit up their imaginations on the streets back in the day, just like skateboarding does today.

the drawing shed also worked with two designer-makers, George Williams and Nozomi Nakabayashi, inviting residents to make a number of playful mobile structures, using this community-making as the vehicles through which stories are told, local heritage and new ideas are explored – across the estates, cultures and generations.
The project culminated with a symposium at Pump House Gallery, THE DAY OF SMALL CONVERSATIONS where participants talked openly about ideas of ‘social responsibility’ in regards to collaborative making and collectively questioned the role of contemporary artists within opposing cultures of resilience, resistance and regeneration.

More information on the project's development here.