For 2021 we create tours, walks, experiences inspired by the local contexts of people, place and landscape: from Woolwich Docks to Northfleet, from Barking Creek to Rosherville, from the Thames Barrier to Mucking, from Stepney, Thamesmead, to Swanscombe Marshes, all, in an exploration of our Watery Commons.
These detours follow from a series of interrelated workshops and online meetings scheduled throughout winter 2020 until end of March 2021 – with Hydracity Artist Advisory Group, Bureau Des Guides, Metropolitan Trails, Kinetika, London Green Walking Network, Estuary, LV21, Intra and Ebbsfleet Garden City. We launch this new calendar of on the ground mapping events, to develop a collection of commissioned artist and research walks, that build from Hydracity collective, community activity and skills-sharing.
These walks include new Hydrodetours but also performative walks that re-present works already commissioned or performed over the last 3 to 4 years. Such as the Rosherville Gardens by Night – where artists Mollett and Morris produced their first on the hoof lantern show, culminating in a Victorian-inspired interactive performance at Northfleet Cemetery: “where we come face to face with Rosie the Bear – fleetingly freed from the Gardens’ Bear Pit – atop a large rock. She dissolves into the darkness, now Good Night, sweet dancer, Good Night ….”
As one local participant commented: “The night walk made me look again at parts of Gravesend I might have otherwise passed by. It was interesting to learn that areas of the town I’d known only as industrial estates were once a Victorian holiday resort (it) makes me look at this landscape in a different way as we explored it.” (Festival Participant)
Events and walks will be updated end of March 2021.