Victoria and Albert Museum

Peckham Takeover at Victoria & Albert Museum TONIGHT

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Peckham Take Over Victoria AlbertWe are all getting used to the Peckham art kids appearing everywhere we go these days! Hannah Barry and her team created the wonderful Palazzo Peckham in Venice this year and now this evening Peckham force is taking over the Victoria & Albert Museum for the second part of a four-part series of Friday Lates at the museum (first one was Dalston Takeover in June). For these special free admission nights, the museum invites London's creative communities to take over the museum for an evening, presenting a range of music, art, design, architecture and more. Here is what you can expect from this evening, but be warned the list is long!

MUSIC & PERFORMANCE

Al Dobson Jr

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Join Al Dobson Jr as he spins a selection of soul, African, highlife, jazz, funk, and reggae, as well as performing a percussion ensemble in between sets. Listen out for Al’s own productions as well as music from his extended family in Peckham.

Rhythm Section

John Madejski Garden 19.15 – 21.30 Rhythm Section is a twice monthly Peckham-based community; a friendly place to dance your troubles away, all night long. It advocates simplicity at its heart; vinyl only, no set times, no photos and no nonsense. Founder, DJ, host and programmer Bradley Zero brings his records to the Museum, capturing the Rhythm Section ethos and spirit.

Reprezent Radio

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 Tune in to a live set by Peckham’s hot young under 25s DJs. Reprezent 107.3FM broadcasts across the capital to young Londoners and across the world online. Featuring DJ Neptizzle amongst others, join them as they bring their unique line up of house and afrobeat to the Museum.

City Love

Lucy and Jim are alone. To the world they seem to be OK: They have jobs, friends, and ambitions (well sort of). However, their chance meeting on the number 12 night bus in Peckham spirals them into a world of love, pain and (mis)communication. To celebrate their forthcoming production of City Love by Simon Vinnicombe at the Bussey Building, Peckham-based theatre company The Orange Line Collective presents an extract from the play in pop up locations around the Museum.

TAKEOVERS

Day Job

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 50a 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham-based illustration collective Day Job take over an area of the Museum, inspired by their home turf of Rye Lane. Experience the buzz of a bustling and multicultural high street through a playful installation, juxtaposed with the elegance of V&A sculptures. Alternatively, exchange a drawing or object for some Bank of Day Job Peckham Pounds (Pecks) at a value negotiated by a pawnbroker. Watch them displayed over the course of the evening in Day Job’s Pawnshop window.

Hannah Barry Gallery

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 A staple of Peckham’s burgeoning reputation as a hub for contemporary art, Hannah Barry Gallery brings the work of three South London-based artists to the Museum. Collectively, these three demonstrate the variety of approaches to art-making embraced by the Peckham movement.

  • Tom Barnett performs as Colden Drystone: uniformed in a future-age suit created by Lee Roach, his performance incorporates the recital of poetry and found texts, Dada-esque sound pieces of the artist’s own composition and patterns of repetition and feedback.
  • James Capper designs and builds functional sculptures that mark the environments in which they are deployed. Incorporating the strategies and techniques of mechanical engineering, Capper’s work describes a physical relationship to the place in which it is stationed.
  • James Balmforth presents a beautiful short film exploring his preoccupation with the fragility of objects and symbols, a concern he also pursues in his sculptural practice.

The Bussey Quarter

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Get involved in The Bussey Quarter, a cross-disciplinary collaboration presented by Lou-Atessa Marcellin gathering a selection of creative practices together from the Bussey Building in Peckham. Engage and interpret the notion of portraiture, through literature, set design, photography and locally crafted music by DJ Tristram Bolletti.

  • Doost Studio run by Lou-Atessa Marcellin, will present a pop-up photo-booth with a cardboard throne designed by Sarah Medvedowsky, emphasizing the visual and spatial identity framing the sitter.
  • Lucie Beauvert and Paol Kemp (LBPK) create a unique atmosphere interlacing the context of the V&A and the practices within the Bussey Building.
  • Library of Independent Exchange (L.I.E.) run by Christopher Green and Mark James, will display individual collections of books that reflect readings by local artists throughout the evening.

Peckham Springs

Sackler Centre (1st Floor) 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Springs is an art gallery and bar situated in two railway arches beneath Peckham Rye Station. The gallery programme features a range of exhibitions, film screenings and live art events by exciting new artists, alongside a bar which serves a range of carefully crafted cocktails. Peckham Springs invite you to experience a typical evening at their space with a selection of work from past and future shows at the gallery and a Peckham Spring Water cocktail in hand.

INSTALLATIONS

Churches

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Take in photographer David Spero’s quiet and contemplative photos of unassuming churches in often surprising locations – revealing the lesser known and invisible structures, lifestyles and architecture of Peckham.

Rye Lane Khanga, Gele and Aso Oke

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 A collaboration between South-London design label Chichia and Rye Lane Market dress shop, Pachito: Chichia London College of Fashion graduate and Chichia designer Christine Mhando showcases pieces from her upcoming collection, fusing East African Tanzanian Khanga with contemporary stylings. Pachito Self taught African dress maker Patricia demonstrates a range of African head wraps, including the iconic Nigerian Gele, Aso Oke and Ghanaian styles, using bespoke Chichia fabrics.

Peckham Rising Revisited

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre 18.30 – 21.30 This installation revisits the exhibition Peckham Rising, curated by urbanist and curator Paul Goodwin at the Sassoon Gallery in Peckham in 2007. Experience a temporary space of contemplation exploring black urbanism and the other side of Peckham through a critical assemblage of street photography, sound and text. Featuring the works of Daniele Tamagni and Thabo Jayesimi and Janine Lai.

WORKSHOPS

Garudio Studiage

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 Join Peckham-based creative collective Garudio Studiage in a duo of workshops:

  • The Lucky Skip: A Very Peckham Lucky Dip

    Rummage through the delights of a very Peckham lucky dip, through a handmade skip, with a chance to win a dizzying selection of prizes. All prizes are handmade or hand selected by Garudio Studiage, wrapped in hand screen-printed wrapping paper.

  • Nation of Shopkeepers

    Create your own fantasy shop for Peckham’s Rye Lane. Using pens, pencils and crayons, customise blank line drawings of every shop on the street, which took over 500 man-hours to draw. Watch the street grow as the evening goes on, and take part in re-imagining this diverse and changing London neighbourhood.

Peckham Space – Peace Blanket!

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Space presents the interactive artwork Peace Blanket, created by Camberwell College of Arts graduate Mhairi Macaulay and over 700 participating residents from Peckham and beyond. In August 2012, Peckham Space invited visitors to stitch a square for peace to celebrate the wall of post-it note messages for Peckham which grew on Rye Lane in response to the riots of 2011. Take a look at the original sayings on the Peace Blanket and contribute your own through the course of the evening.

Peckham Print Studio

Sackler Centre Art Studio 18.30 – 21.30 Installing a series of custom built screen printing units, Peckham Print Studio will transform the V&A Art Studio into their own working studio. Pull your own print and engage with the process from start to finish. The studio will also be joined by a selection of artists and illustrators who will produce a series of custom works to be printed at the event.

Illustrate Camberwell

Lunchroom 1, Sackler Centre 18.30 – 21.30 Firmly rooted in the border between Peckham and Camberwell, Camberwell College of Art has built up a formidable reputation within the area. Enroll as a fresher, learn how to illustrate with current Camberwell BA Illustration students, hang your final work in your degree show and see what grade you get. Don’t forget to top off your newly acquired degree with a photo in your graduation robes.

TALKS & FILM

Artist Maps

Prints & Drawings Study Room (Accessed via the Sackler Centre) 19.30 – 20.15 Inspired by Tom Phillips’ Map Walks Nos. 1 and 2 which focus on the artist’s relationship with the Peckham and Camberwell area, V&A Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings Gill Saunders walks us through the enthralling world of the artist map. Take an intimate look at specially selected maps in the Museum’s collection.

Peckham Past and Present

Seminar Room 1 19.30 – 20.30 Listen to local resident, architect and Peckham Vision conservation specialist Benny O’Looney in conversation with Ben Eastham (Hannah Barry Gallery/The White Review) and Biz K, editor of The Peckham Complex: A Cultural and Social Snapshot of Inner London, as they discuss the area’s cultural scene, architecture and social history.

Peckham Vision

Seminar Room 2, Sackler Centre 20.40 – 21.25 Join local resident and co-ordinator of community group Peckham Vision Eileen Conn as she chairs a Peckham Vision community meeting, starting with a visual tour of Peckham’s diverse parallel communities and economies. Get involved in a lively discussion about wider issues of connections, integration and realising the potential of our town centres.

Aesthetica Magazine Presents

Hochhauser Auditorium 19.00 & 20.00 (50 minutes) Aesthetica presents a screening of films from Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) 2012, providing a wider context to Peckham as an area. Paper Mountains shows a young girl’s love of ballet in the midst of a hard and difficult life but also presents her aspirations for the future. Notes from the Underground is a portrait of life on the tube, whilst the remaining films question morality and depict the hardships of addiction. The reel aims to capture vignettes of everyday life, offering a glimpse into the lives of others.

Hendzel and Hunt’s Peckham Yacht Club

National Art Library 20.30 – 21.15 Join Peckham-based design studio Hendzel and Hunt as they present their latest project, L’Abeille Noir des Porquerolles. Specialising in working with reclaimed wood, they joined forces with landscape architects Elinor Scarth and Etienne Haller. The group embarked on a three week adventure in the south of France where they built and sailed a seven meter long boat entirely made from scavenged materials.

Peckham Social Archives

Sculpture, Room 21a 18.30 – 21.45 Explore the local entrepreneurs of Peckham’s diverse community, first screened at Peckhamplex as part of Chelsea College of Art and Design’s Consume Peckham event. Chaz Hairdressers by Tom Brushwood, Didi Blackhurst and Shraddha Depala, follows George the owner as he reflects on the history of his shop in Peckham. Born and Bread by Jack Haslehurst, Isabel Gibson and Joe Myers, is a day in the life of a wholesale bakery in Peckham.

Sculptures behind the Renaissance

When you think of the great Renaissance works, one tends to focus on oil paintings and the painters. But without the sculptors who paved the way, we would have no Botticelli, Leonardo or Raphael. Renaissance really began in a few decades at the beginning of the 15th century in Florence, and a superb exhibition "The Springtime of the Renaissance" at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence maps out this artistic revolution and brings together a treasure-studded retrospective of sculpture through Western art's most important era. Speaking of the exhibition, curator Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says "the exhibition aims to show that the origin of this revolution, which lasted two centuries, was sculpture."

Works by masters including Donatello and Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello have been loaned for the unprecedented show, with works coming from collections including the Louvre in Paris, the Bargello Museum in Florence, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bode-Museum in Berlin, the Metropolitan in New York and the National Gallery in Washington.

Donatello, "Madonna Pazzi" circa 1420 marble, 74.5 x 73 x 6.5 cm Bode-Museum, Berlin

Amongst the loans is the Cortona sarcophagus, carved with Amazon warriors and plunging centaurs, that Brunelleschi is said to have walked all the way from Florence to see. The Bode-Museum lent a magnificent work by Donatello known as the "Madonna Pazzi" -- a marble statue used to create molds that were then used to cast copies in bronze. Speaking of this work, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says:

"These moulds in terracotta or stucco were not that costly so that any store or convent could afford the statues in Florence and elsewhere. This allowed the aesthetic revolution to spread, including outside of Italy."

Copies of the molds were made especially for the exhibition and put on display where visitors are encouraged to touch them.

Congratulations are due to the three institutions behind this show: the Louvre and the Bargello Museum, both of which have amazing permanent holdings, and Palazzo Strozzi. The exhibition ends in Florence on 18th of August, and will travel to the Louvre in September, on view until 6th of January 2014. So plenty of chance to see it.