UP Projects are celebrating our 20th anniversary by announcing an Autumn programme that explores how progressive public art commissioning can help create more inclusive public spaces that better reflect the diversity and hybridity of the British public today.
The public programme follows the unveiling of The National Windrush Monument by Basil Watson on 22 June 2022, enabled by UP Projects in collaboration with the Windrush Commemoration Committee and the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities. The National Windrush Monument is the first national monument that pays tribute to the Windrush generation and their descendants in recognition of their vital contribution and enrichment of the UK’s social, economic and cultural history.
For the past 20 years, UP Projects have curated ambitious artist-led commissions that connect communities, shape identities, empower inclusion and address and respond to the most pressing issues of our time. We bring art to unexpected corners of the public realm, finding creative potential in unlikely situations, and our work is always responsive to its environment. Our 20 years’ experience champions a bold yet sensitive approach that values time, takes care, inspires learning and enables the transformational impact of public art to flourish.
For our Autumn programme, UP Projects will be working with artist Sonia E Barrett on Rush Me, a digital counterpoint to The National Windrush Monument as well as collaborating with Monuments to Movements, Autograph and schools across London. The programme offers a platform for debate around how our public spaces and places can become more inclusive and better reflect the diversity and hybridity of communities that make up the UK today leading to greater empathy, understanding and empowerment.
Programme Details
Constellations ° Assemblies: How can we rethink the memorial?
14 September 2022, 12:00 – 13:15 BST
The Hall, UP Projects’ digital event space
Part of Constellations ° Assemblies
An online discussion event that explored how public art can play a role in building greater empathy and understanding, leading towards structural change through new ways of memorialising.
Memorials are intrinsically linked to a vision of the past and our relationship to the history of a particular territory. Can we find a more imaginative, nuanced way of making memorials? What if memorials were used as opportunities to speculate on future alternatives and scenarios rather than symbolising and reinforcing past memories?
How can we rethink the memorial? was moderated by Neysa Page-Lieberman and Jane M. Saks, Co-Founders and Co-Artistic Directors of Monuments to Movements. Speakers include artist duo, Elmgreen & Dragset and artist group, Raqs Media Collective.
Rush Me by Sonia E Barrett
Online Workshop
13 October 2022, 19:00 - 20:30 BST
The Hall, UP Projects’ digital event space
As a counterpoint to The National Windrush Monument by Basil Watson at Waterloo Station, UP Projects have commissioned Rush Me by Sonia E Barrett that investigates narratives including migration, belonging, identity and hybridity and builds greater empathy with the Windrush Generation by re-contextualising the British Government’s invitation in the 1940’s to come and help the “motherland”.
Presented as a series of navigable rooms, the content of Rush Me will be shaped by West Indian communities in Leeds, Derby, London and returnees in Jamaica. A public workshop will take place on 13 October 2022, inviting cross-generational participants to explore, discuss and help shape this pioneering digital artwork.
Monumental Impact: How can public art create inclusive public spaces?
In-person Event
20 October 2022, 18:30 - 20:00 BST
Autograph Gallery, Rivington Pl, London EC2A 3BA
A discussion event that will draw on a number of public art projects recently commissioned in London to pay tribute to the Windrush Generation and their descendants, this event will raise awareness and offer a platform for debate around the importance of creating more inclusive public spaces that better reflect the diversity and hybridity of the British public today.
Challenging the notion that public art interventions need to be monumental in order to be impactful, the event will look at the way in which monuments can be used as vehicles for learning, contemplation and reflection.
Click here to book and learn more.
Windrush Monuments Schools Programme
October – November 2022
Primary Schools, London
To accompany The National Windrush Monument, by Basil Watson at London Waterloo Station, UP Projects have produced a downloadable learning resource for Key Stage 2 pupils that will inform a series of free workshops for Primary Schools during the Autumn term 2022. The workshops expand upon the themes that inform the Monument and invite children to make connections with stories of migration and relocation relevant to their own lives in order to build stronger understanding and empathy with people from different backgrounds.
The Rush Me Talk Show
24 November 2022, 18:00-20:00 GMT
The Hall, UP Projects’ digital event space
This online talk show, hosted by Jamz Supernova, highlights how the skills, lived experiences and creativity of people from the Caribbean have influenced and shaped British culture today. Devised to be listened to or watched, the event will welcome live participation from the audience, broadcasting British-West Indian music, poetry and visual art nationally and internationally.
