The ‘art box’ at Newgate Gap shelter has had another makeover in a project curated by Margate creative producer Victoria Barrow Williams.
Working with Crate Project Space in Margate and Stretch outsider art charity, Victoria has invited artist Catherine Chinatree to create installations at the two venues.
The installations are part of a programme called “The Lived Experience” with Catherine’s work titled My Pink Moisturising Dream.
Victoria Barrow Williams, who is a co-founder of People Dem Collective community organisation, has been developing the project as part of the Crate residency programme.
Across the month-long residency the community will be invited into the space, with opportunities to take part in The Black Joy: Black Hair workshop hosted by Rhyan Rhyan, a multidisciplinary artist, illustrator, graphic designer and producer.
Organisers say the workshop explores different aspects of the Black Identity that embody ‘Joy’ specifically through the lens of Black hair. There will be space created within the programme for participants to document their ‘hair confessionals’ with People Dem Collective, who are collecting stories for the National Cultural Centre.
The last weekend will end with the launch of The Salon on the Coast, a zine celebrating the stories of Black women and non binary folks in and around Margate, through their hair. This has been developed by Korantema, a London based cultural producer whose afro hair shop installation is currently being shown at the Horniman Museum as part of the Hair; Untold Stories exhibition.
This project has been funded by Arts Council England.
Emperors new clothes……..
Victoria Barrow Williams, who is a co-founder of People Dem Collective community organisation, has been developing the project as part of the Crate residency programme. Yes, it explains a lot-more cash for total pretentious rubbish, what is their obsession with black hair?
Who needs comedy at Margate’s theatres when we can all laugh at this lot?!
Biggest load of rubbish and money since ,the millions that slept in my bed rubbish ,this is not Art it is juvenile rubbish by people pretending to be artist,it something school children do ,who is paying for this crap and how much are these so called artists getting paid ,will one of please let us know,they won’t of course
I’d love to know how much Arts Council funding they receive… is this info in the public domain, I wonder?
Peter, I am more worried now much TDC and KCC ,that directly effects the council tax,by councils that do nothing but take take take
“who is paying for this crap and how much are these so called artists getting paid”
Anyone that pay’s tax is paying for it 🙁
I seem to remember, a while back the people from this shelter project. Were asking people to have their photos taken. Then these images were to be sent to America to be printed. To be stuck on this shuttering ply box. That is real art for you. I suppose there is no one in the UK who can print from a digital image. I wonder if they tried Tesco or the stall at Westwood? Anyway what happened to these photos? Maybe they are stuck in the post?
They were torn down soon after they were put up.
More pretentious, self-serving, self-interested, black hair, black joy nonsense.
The whole thing is overtly racist and needs to be stopped.
Who cares about black blonde ginger or any colour hair ,to make an art thing about is rubbish and lazy
I cannot understand why, the shelter could not just remain as a ‘shelter’
It is an absolute eyesore and I think whoever at TDC handed it over to the group ‘Stretch’ needs to be sacked.
Years of maintenance neglect by the council is to blame.
Their answer to everything is just hand it over to any so called group who know all the boxes to tick.
No regard is given to the
locals.
We count for nothing, or maybe if we had ‘black hair’ that might help.
Totally agree tdc at its best
The artist has stood in her white paint and walked it all over the tiles on the ground. What a mess indeed.
When is TDC taking control back and handing it over to a group who will lovingly restore the shelter back to it’s historic purpose? Why do they want this dereliction and despair in Cliftonville !
They beamed propaganda images onto Arlington House for publicity 2-3 years back, anybody else had done that would have been arrested. I would like to complain about this woman misappropriating white culture with her paint though.
What once was a lovely place to live,
Cliftonville, is no longer the place I grew up in.
Unfortunately, for too many years, certain areas have been used as a ‘dumping’ ground.
I know we cannot go back, but honestly, TDC have a lot to answer for.
I agree 100% with the last three comments.
The historic shelter should have been maintained and used for the purpose it was built
for.
What is there now, the so called ‘Art Box’ is an absolute ‘eyesore’
It is time TDC, gave sone regard to the local residents views.
I hold my breath!
The floor there is filthy. Is it too much to hope that she’ll run a mop around it afterwards?
Has anyone thought that the white foot prints are part of the art installation ?
I genuinely wondered whether or not the peeling and grafitti covered posters that were there previously were meant to be “art”. It was only when I read on here that they were holding a poetry protest(!) that I knew they’d been defaced.
https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2022/02/17/open-mic-call-for-poets-to-take-part-in-defiance-against-vandals-stretched-lips-9-event/
That’s the problem with art nowadays.
I see a dumped mattress and I dont know if its fly tipping or an art installation.
Oh please make this stop.
Racism is real, agonising artistically over small issues with afro hair is trivialising that reality.
And this isn’t good art. It’s pedestrian, simple-minded and self-serving.
And I would add … looking at other examples of this artists work, there’s plenty that would have been so, so much better.
Personally, I think she should stick to acting.
And let the shelter stick to being a shelter. It was there for everyone, not just people who like woke art.
Lets face it, the damn thing is an eyesore.
It can’t be a shelter again because it will only suffer the same fate as it did before (vandalism, public urinal, haven for alcohlics and drug users, homeless shelter etc. before finally being torched).
I reckon it could make a nice little cafe or snack bar where parents can have a coffee while their children play in the newly rebuilt play area opposite or in the new skate park next to it if that ever happens.