Deptford High Street re-presented

The Academy of Urbanism has shortlisted Deptford High Street in its Urbanism Awards 2016. The awards aim to recognise "the best, most enduring or most improved urban environments". The Academy has visited and assessed "over 100 outstanding examples of good urbanism" in the UK, Ireland and Europe – and our high street is one of 15 finalists.

There are five categories – European City, Great Neighbourhood, Great Place, Great Town and Great Street. Deptford High Street has been shortlisted for the latter category, along with Cairns Street (a residential street in Liverpool) and Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork. The winners of each category will be announced on November 6th at the Academy's Awards Ceremony.

Update 9 November: The 'Great Street Award' was won by Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork. For more info on the winners click here.

Tower of Babel by Barnaby Barford
© V&A

Meanwhile, the high street is one of many represented in Barnaby Barford's Tower of Babel at the V&A. Barford has created a six metre tower out of 3000 individual hand-made bone china buildings, each depicting a real London shop. Barford calls it a snapshot of our times; it "forces you to think where you fit into this hierarchy of consumption". Expensive shops and galleries make up the top part of the tower, with the cheap shops at the bottom. Creative Review notes that "It feels apt that it is the cheaper stores that are the easiest to examine at the base of the sculpture, as arguably these are the most unique, compared to the high street chains and even fancy boutiques that are out of sight higher up". There are 32 Deptford shops at the base of the tower.

Each of the small models are for sale, varying in price from £95 to £6000. You can browse the Deptford shops via the online V&A shop – they vary in price from £110 to £250 and, at the time of writing, over half have sold but you can still pick up Kids Love Ink for £210.

Deptford High Street also features in the child-like drawings of Jeanette Parris, who is 'lead artist' at this year's Deptford X. For last year's festival, Jeanette "spent time talking with local residents and stallholders at Deptford Market" and her depictions of those conversations were printed as a comic  and handed out free. This year she has "been building on these conversations" to create an animation called Brief Encounter.

A scene from Brief Encounter © Jeanette Parris @ Deptford X 2015

The theme of this year's festival is 'Deptford Conversations' and Jeanette will be talking about Deptford with 50 other 'guest' artists about what they feel is relevant to it. Deptford X runs from 25th Sept to 4th Oct.  Follow on Twitter @DeptfordX and Facebook. Also see the Deptford Dame's round-up.

Meanwhile, local fears about gentrification of the high street are demonstrated in the leaflet below that was distributed in last Saturday's market...(click to enlarge).

Deptford X continues + Fun Palace weekend

Lots happening this weekend in and around Deptford town centre. Exhibitions and open studios continue as part of Deptford X – apologies that we have not had time to pick out the best! It sounds like it's worth visiting both St Nick's and St Paul's churches, just two of the non-gallery spaces where artists are showing their work, but what else is going on?

We popped into the Deptford X HQ on Creekside (next to APT Gallery) earlier to find out what we've been missing. Co-ordinator Caz Underwood told us that Luis Rodriguez's "Dancing Builder" (see the short video above) has been very popular. Rodriguez has been dancing – like no one is watching – at regular intervals (peak travel times) on the roof of the Bird's Nest in full view of passing DLR trains. He's up there right now (singing to himself as well), and tomorrow he can be seen between 8-9am and 4-6pm. You can also watch him at these times on a live stream.

Caz also suggested we go see Jessica Voorsanger's show "It's about the hair" at the temporary gallery space on Brookmill Road. Jessica's large format photographs are self portraits of herself dressed as various celebrities, a project she embarked on after her hair grew back strangely curly following a period of baldness when she was undergoing chemotherapy recently. "Witty but dark" is how Caz describes the work.

There is far too much to see all over Deptford to list here, but to find out what else is going on, head to the HQ to pick up a map. You'll still need to refer to the website to find out about the artists and times and you can also check the map online – which Caz says is more up-to-date. Over the weekend at the HQ, lead artist Bob and Roberta Smith will be finishing his "Vote" painting, and you can try your hand at screen printing. There'll be live music here on Sunday (12-5pm) and banners are being made to carry on "a march" from the HQ to the Job Centre pub at around 5.30pm. Later, there's Fred's Art Quiz at the Dog and Bell (9pm), or if electronic music is your thing, spend the day at Vinyl cafe (2-11pm). Follow Deptford X on Twitter @DeptfordX.


Meanwhile, local theatre folk are taking part in and presenting "a weekend-long celebration of arts, science and culture" as part of the nationwide Fun Palace weekend (also see coverage in The Guardian). Pop-up performances, story-telling, food fights, circus, music – find out what's going on at the information point in the market square next to the Albany – or download the timetable and map.

We noticed this anchor last night and wondered if a new campaign to bring our anchor back had started, but it's part of the Fun Palace weekend... "Deptford's newest street theatre troop" The Red Anchors will be presenting pop-up theatre wherever you see a red anchor – "on the ground, in the trees, on lamp posts and on people" is where things might suddenly happen from midday on Saturday and Sunday...

Incidentally, last year's Deptford Is Forever art project are selling their tattoo-inspired Anchor T-shirts at the Deptford X HQ on Creekside on Saturday and Sunday (Unisex or Ladyfit – scooped neck, capped sleeves – all sizes @£10 with 10% going to Deptford X). Other Deptford X merchandise will be available at reduced prices, including silk screen prints of the festival poster "What is the value of art?" and limited edition signed prints of "Art makes people powerful" by Bob & Roberta Smith.

Deptford X 2014 26 September – 5th October

The theme of this year's Deptford X festival, set by the lead artist-in-residence Bob & Roberta Smith, is What is the Value of Art? "Bob" will be esconced in the temporary Deptford X 'headquarters' in the former cafe at the now closed-down Faircharm trading estate on Creekside. Visitors will be encouraged to contribute their own ideas to create a collective statement around the theme. 'Bob' heads up The Art Party, a loose grouping of artists and organisations concerned about the Coalition's reduction of the role of the arts and design in schools.

The festival launches on Friday 26th September with local galleries open late. On the first weekend, there'll be Open Studios at APT & Old Police Station, with Lewisham Arthouse, ASC and Acme opening their doors the following weekend. During the festival activities at the HQ will include sign painting, badge making and screen printing, plus performances from local musicians, all culminating in a special event on Sunday 5th October.

For more information on participating artists, venues and events go to the Programme page on the Deptford X website. Follow on Twitter @DeptfordX.

Update: a printed map will be available on Friday to help you navigate the various venues and exhibition times. It can also be downloaded from the Deptford X website.

Deptford X continues till Sunday...

Photo by George Avvakoumides

The Deptford X banner "Art Makes People Powerful", created by a flash mob of artists in Giffin Square last Saturday (see video) now hangs on the front of the LESOCO building on Deptford Broadway.

We wonder if Art Can help Make Powerful all the highly qualified staff who have been made redundant (at Southwark, at least, without any renumeration packages) as a result of the merger of Lewisham and Southwark colleges and education cuts in general.

Meanwhile, this weekend there are Open Studios and an Art Quiz at the Dog and Bell on Sunday as well as a multitude of gallery shows and shop takeovers. We like the installation at the new Vinyl cafe in Tanners Hill – called Soft Wax, it looks at music and culture of the Jamaican diaspora at the end of the 1950s. The new cafe is lovely, and there's a secondhand vinyl shop in the basement, along with the exhibition.

On Saturday at the Albany (10am-4pm), artist Bernadette Russell asks "Is it possible to change the world just by being kind?" in her interactive show 366 Days of Kindness. The idea is that members of the public can write a few words about how a kind act from a stranger touched their lives, on a ticket which is attached to a balloon. The balloons are then released at the end of the day.

There is still much for us to see, and too much to cover in detail, but we especially like Deptford Is Forever, who have given out paper bags to high street shopkeepers and market traders with a tattoo design printed on them that says "Give Us Back Our Bloomin' Anchor". The design is lovely, and to pay for the free bags the group has also had printed some T-shirts and cotton shoppers that locals seem to be snapping up. The T-shirt has the Deptford Is Forever logo on it (see below, the shirt being worn by Niaomh from the Deptford Community Cookbook team). You can pick up your T-shirt for £10 at Kids Love Ink, the tattoo parlour at 138 Deptford High Street.

The Waiting Room Coffee shop, Little Nan's bar on Deptford Broadway, and Ralph at High Street Flowers also have some cotton shoppers for sale apparently (£5), and the group commissioned High Street Flowers to make a "ghost anchor" to hang in the window.

Not only that but the group have organised a day of FREE tattooing (a little anchor of your choice) at Kids Love Ink. That's tomorrow and is apparently oversubscribed – those wanting to take up the offer had to book today, or else take a chance tomorrow. Participants will be asked for a donation to Deptford Reach, the project that looks after Deptford's street drinkers and anyone who's hit hard times, and Build The Lenox, the local project that wants to build a replica 17th century ship at Convoys Wharf.

The Deptford Is Forever "Anchor Fest" continues on the weekend with a musical procession along the high street at around midday-2pm which features a huge cardboard anchor made by Arthouse artist Laura X Carlé that was last spotted in the My Deptford show at the South Bank and seen by anyone attending London Open House at the Master Shipwright's House. The procession gathers at the Dog & Bell pub at 12 and aims to end up before 3pm at Lewisham Arthouse on Lewisham Way, where there's an exhibition and Open Studios all weekend.

We also hear that Little Nan's will be having a bit of a "Deptford Is Forever" night on Saturday, with nautically themed cocktails, some of which will feature Pusser's rum, the preferred drink of the Navy which used to be stored in Deptford Dockyard.

The group certainly seem to have run with the Deptford X theme Art Makes People Powerful, and have an informative website about the Anchor and the Deptford Dockyard (some of which has been taken from this blog). But whether the Deptford Anchor returns to the high street and its environs is another matter...

More info at www.deptfordisforever.net
Or like their Facebook page

www.deptfordx.org

Deptford X has started...on your doorstep

This "Flash Mob" event yesterday marked the beginning of Deptford X Visual Arts Festival, now in its 15th year. You may have got a sense that something was up since artists have been scurrying around for the past couple of days getting ready for this festival.

Deptford X 2013 opened on Friday and is open today, and next week from Thur 3rd-Sunday 6th October. Go to www.deptfordx.org to see what's going on – but there's so much to see, it might be best to just go out and look for people who seem to know where they're going! Here's some stuff we managed to see yesterday. Deptford High Street blog also has a round up of the goings on.

Noemi Lakmaier The Observer Effect at Gallop, 198 Deptford High Street

 The Bent Tin Shop (aka Robert Walker) gets a make-over from Artmongers. It's now called "el cheap 'ou"

Hollie Paxton Deptford Tin Street at El Cheapo (see above)
Hollie also has some
Deptford inspired jewellery in the window of Abermarle & Bond.

Harry Pye and friends Tintin in Deptford at Norfolk House, Brookmill Road

Spotted in gallery at Enclave on Resolution Way...

Deptford Is Forever have put printed bags with a message (Give Us Back Our Bloomin' Anchor) in lots of shops and market stalls for traders to put their customers' purchases in.

Odd little plaques by Debbie Sharp on benches around Deptford.

Lead artist Bob & Roberta Smith in front of his painting Art Makes People Powerful (which is the theme of this year's Deptford X) at Norfolk House on Brookmill Road.

Rebecca Beinart was in Sue Godfrey Nature Park showing the herbal remedies she has made from the plants growing in the park.

Underneath the arches

This small white classical niche appeared in one our arches (next to Browne House) in the last week of July and no one seemed to know how it got there.

It turned out to be an artwork by Joe Morris called Niche, part of Deptford X Fringe, which finished last weekend. The blurb says, "At a time when Deptford is in the throes of regeneration and the country is in a prolonged state of financial austerity, ‘Niche’ invites the viewer to consider whether we have lost our heritage."

http://www.deptfordx.org/programmes/2/events/53

It's a nice legacy from the festival and certainly a more lovely addition to our arches than the unseemly amount of dogshit occupying the next but one couple of arches, left by an unidentified dog-owner who, according to the caretakers, comes from outside the estate – let's hope it's not one of our own residents.

Pimp my ride!

As the second week of Deptford X gets under way, we managed to get along to Bearspace to see a show by one of the artists invited by the curators Hew Locke & Indra Khanna – Dzine. His piece has only just been installed (it was delayed by customs), and is accompanied by a wall piece and a video. Dzine has created a sculpture which takes its inspiration from the 'Szwaybar' custom-made low-riding bicycles of the youth of Curacao, though this life-size bike is embellished with 24-carat gold leaf, crystals and jewels.

You can see the Curacao boys riding their bikes in the video, displaying the same flashy moves as any young lad round here might show off on his bike, though going forwards whilst appearing to go sideways is a new one on us (maybe just showing our age or gender). All without helmets of course. Read more about Dzine on the Deptford X website.

This show just happens to co-incide with the triumphs of golden boy Bradley Wiggins and team GB – whose cycling techniques, of course, are somewhat different. Blingtastic.

More Deptford X:

There's a guided walk on Saturday starting at 2pm at Bearspace Gallery that will cover the fringe artists in the festival (pay what you can) or why not try a cycling tour (£10).

Transpontine has highlighted an event on Saturday 5 August (starts 11am) which sounds interesting: a Three-sided football tournament at Fordham Park (three teams playing on an hexagonal pitch, winners are who concede the least goals).

Caroline's Miscellany posted last Sunday on what she had managed to see on the first weekend (all of which are still on show).

We've also had good reports (though of course tastes do differ) of shows at St Paul's Church, Blank Promiscuity at St Paul's House on the high street, Doug Jones at 455 New Cross Road, David Mach's fire-breathing sculpture Hell Bent on Blackheath, and that's just a tiny handful...A mind blowing experience can be had lying down on the floor at Divus Gallery in Resolution Way watching James Holland's 30 minute film The White Queen (which is projected on the ceiling)...

Close to home on Creekside, don't forget Faircharm Fair, Creekside Artists' designer-makers indoor market (less pricey than Cockpit Arts) – lots of great jewellery and hand-crafted items – Saturday & Sunday 4 & 5 August, 11am - 6am. Have a look on the map for more stuff to see on Creekside and further afield.

David Mach's Hell Bent at Lewisham's Big Screen site on Blackheath.

Deptford X 2012

Deptford's annual contemporary visual arts festival kicks off this Friday to run concurrently with the Olympics until 12th August.

There is so much to go and see it's too big a job for us to pick out what may be the highlights – so have a look at the website at www.deptfordx.org.

Apart from some big names invited by the lead curators Hew Locke & Indra Khanna, and work commissioned by Lewisham Council, there are over 50 fringe artists or projects popping up all over the place in shops and on the sides of buildings, in the streets and other more unusual places, plus gallery shows, open studios, events and performances.

There's a free printed map to tell you where everything is, which you can pick up in various venues. To find out more about the actual work on show, download the brochure from the website or buy one for a quid at Creekside Cafe (on Creekside) and Arch Materials (in Resolution Way). The map can also be downloaded. Both are indispensible if you want to know what's going on. There are also walking and cycling tours to help you navigate your way around and not miss the best stuff.

The curators' theme for the festival centres on "the decorative": "Surrender to the pleasure of the decorative. Revel in the excessive, embrace it and be dazzled...But... Layers of decoration contain levels of meaning, messages and codes – symbols of power, conspicuous consumption, signals of elitist knowledge, patterns of control and signs of social belonging..." All that glitters is not gold, perhaps?

Work is in the process of being installed ready for Friday. We spotted lead artist Hew Locke's piece going up on the side of the old Tidemill school today. Hew's piece is called Gold Standard and "uses original old share certificates to explore the history and movement of money, power and ownership". Our first thought is that it is certainly sited in the right place to comment on the bondage of capitalism – on the old school (which is privately guarded), in view of the new school (which is now privately run).

The organisers are hoping to attract extra interest from visitors to the equestrian events at Greenwich, and APT studio artist Heather Burrell (who designed the decorative gates at Creekside Discovery Centre) has picked up on the equestrian theme – look out for her life-sized galloping horses on windows throughout the area, directing visitors in an eastward direction to Greenwich. In Creekside Cafe we spotted some small coloured horses cut from metal which she is selling cheaply to help pay for the larger ones (pre-festival they are only £5). Heather's horses may be the nearest many of us will get to any of these beasts this year, despite the events going on in Greenwich (unless you're a frequent visitor to our plethora of betting establishments, of course).

We also spotted this piece by Tracey Payne this morning, sitting atop the Deptford Project train carriage, like a weather vane signalling the unprecedented number of construction projects going on in our area. Expect more visual surprises like this once the festival is in full swing.

Full listings at www.deptfordx.org

Also see South London Art Map.

We love the Deptford Machine!

Don't miss the Deptford Machine by Ben Parry, at Utrophia Project Space – the jerky video above shows only one side of the sculpture but there is plenty more to see in this jangling kinetic wonder made of second hand market junk and treasures and poundshop specials. The machine gains more momentum as you walk its length but at its peak there's a contrastingly slow snail race and movement is imperceptable.

Deptford X continues this weekend, with early evening openings as part of "Last Fridays"....there are special events at Lewisham Art House and The Old Police Station, among others. As well as the galleries, open studios continue (Art Hub, Cor Blimey Arts, Creekside Artists, Hatch Space, Lewisham Art House and the Old Police Station) and the weekend ends with an art quiz at the Dog and Bell with Fred Aylward. Meanwhile The Bird's Nest pub now boasts a new sign by Adam Vass....

...and we hope Ashton & Mollett have baked a few more ship's biscuits. These 'ornately embossed edible artworks' – which were available last weekend at various locations while stocks lasted – depict the fate of the Golden Hinde. They are staging a Making & Baking performance at Creekside Discovery Centre on Saturday 1 October from 1pm–3pm.

There are three walking tours over the weekend: one starts at 1.45pm on Saturday at Creekside Discovery Centre (free), the other two are pay-what-you-can run by South London Art Map. At 5pm on Saturday there's performance art at Unit D in Crossfield Street by Amy Lord (apparently it contains nudity) and more on Sunday possibly anywhere in Deptford between 10 and 5 by Laura Cooper.

If you're wearing a Deptford X badge you can get discounts at Arch Materials, The Big Red Pizzeria, Creekside Cafe and Deptford Project Cafe. And public voting is taking place online for the Fringe Award – winners will be announced at the Deptford X pub quiz at the Dog & Bell on Sunday evening. It appears that Deptford In A Shell  (at the train carriage) has captured people's hearts most so far. There are also other small works by Crossfields resident Chrissie Stewart and ex-Crossfields resident Janet Currier in this space – not part of the main or fringe festival, but worth a look.

We liked Surrender To The Pleasure by Ar-se (yes, arse) at APT Project Space in Creekside and were struck by the poignancy of the shanty town construction built in the shadow of so much new development, recalling the fate of the Chinese street dwellers 'disappeared' by the Bejing Olympics.

There is much to see outside of the selected main programme and fringe, and we recommend the show at St Paul's House in the high street by five of the artists who have been temporarily based there whilst the building awaits redevelopment.

 A couple of other things we saw last weekend were also not part of the festival 'selection' – unofficial fringe, if you like. The mural for Douglas Square was a project organised by Lewisham Council – we caught the winner, photographer Peter Anderson, aboard some scaffolding putting paint to a newly rendered wall. We know Peter likes to develop his own photos, but this must be his slowest emerging image making yet.

Across the newly laid square was another team painting a wall. This one was from Goldsmiths, the project of two design students, "aiming to commemorate the dying industry of hand rendered sign writing, presently drowning amongst corporate messaging..."

Part of London Design Festival, Talking Walls "employ human hands to speak to the people". "Inspired by the charm of traditional advertisements, now fading but visible to the curious eye"...
Here's one they did earlier in the Deptford Project yard – possibly very short lived since that wall will probably be removed when redevelopment begins.

Talking of murals, we are reminded of Gary Drostle's Love Over Gold mural in Creekside. We reported in August that the mural was under threat by Cockpit Arts who wanted to remove the doors to make way for a Deptford X installation and replace them with metal security doors. The Chair of Crossfields TRA was going to write to them and tell them this was unacceptable – that the mural doors must be kept, pinned to the new security doors if necessary.

However, the doors are gone. Adrian Lee's piece is about CCTV cameras going feral and wild.

We hope Cockpit Arts intend to replace the mural doors when Deptford X finishes. There may be a bit of a ta-doo if not.

Deptford X : Billboards...

Above is a piece by Polish artist Ivo de Jeu which is about to appear on a billboard near us...

How about this for reality? The plan for Convoys Wharf...

Deptford X 2011 opens this Friday

Anywhere arty you go in Deptford this Friday you're bound to come across an "opening"...(expect more of the same on Friday 30th September, the now traditional Last Friday of the month late opening – though I'd hardly call 8.30pm 'late').

If you have a friend or acquaintance (I have) who is an artist working in Deptford you'll already know there's something going on (they'll either be very stressed getting ready for it or not bothered and a bit bolshy and possibly very drunk). Without this influence in your lives you could be forgiven for not knowing anything was going on (though of course you may not be interested even if you knew).

In the last post about Deptford X it wasn't mentioned – the number of new galleries and venues open this time round – including a showcase in the new Barratt's Delta Development on Creek Road. As well as the usual, there are a few additions to the Art Trail, including some places on Tanners Hill... Let me check for you on the website...Ah, galleries...Oh, have a look for yourselves...

It's a PDF download, titled (one assumes) for admin use only – 'Programme-DX-08 medium res.pdf'. Not "Deptford X 2011 Programme.pdf" as you might expect. It's a pdf version of the little printed booklet that you may or may not have seen. It looks great, but you might find it hard to locate this file again on your hard drive, and any time you click on this website you're likely to get another version of this file. If you treat this website like a normal website you're just going to end up with about 30 versions of the same file.

So has it been updated (always the web's advantage over the printed version)? Well, I was looking at the Deptford X Showcase that is supposed to be in that shit looking new brown building on Creek Road that is the new Barratts' development...I haven't got a problem that they're showing in this shell of a shit development, I'd like to know how they've dealt with it. BUT in the printed Deptford X booklet on page 11 it says SEE WEBSITE FOR TIMES. On the website it says nothing, and every time you click on anything you DOWNLOAD A PDF OF THE PRINTED BOOKLET YOU JUST READ.

Then there's the posters. The posters and leaflets have a QR CODE (Quick Response code) as the actual design (see above), which is a great comment on decoration (a theme of this year's Deptford X) and the strapline "Look beneath the surface" would have some resonance if the QR CODE worked. Does it? I don't have a device that scans QR codes, but it would seem this is of little use if all it gets you is the Deptford X website, where most of the festival is only available to view by downloading a pdf.

That would be OK, but each category downloads the same pdf (of the printed booklet) – so you end up downloading the booklet many times. Is this a cheap equivalent of having a Deptford X App on your mobile – saving you lots of online time? That's a good idea, but if you're viewing the website any other way (er...on your computer), you could be cringing when you read that Deptford X is "London's FOREMOST Contemporary Arts Festival". That is obviously SO not true. SOUTH LONDON's foremost might be...More on the QT than the QR. 

Events-wise, there appear to be things going on during the days, but they're not listed to easily find. As for evening Openings aka Private Views (aka the only real public viewing some exhibitions get), whilst it is actually possible to get round every gallery and venue in one evening in three hours (I tried it last year but don't remember anything and didn't they have some bicycle taxi thing?) it strikes me that the organisers could've done some organising and requested that all the different venues open a different night in turn throughout the ten days of the festival – or at least an alternative Friday/Saturday/Sunday over the two weekends. Then festival goers would have an event to look forward to every evening at one or two venues instead of ten or more on the same evening, and an opportunity to spend more time at those venues and not miss the action at all the others. It would at least give the artists involved the opportunity to get out and meet practitioners from other studios and venues instead of being stuck at their own premises entertaining non-existent visitors who are busy at another venue...and it would encourage venues to make their private views (aka public events) more interesting.

I recommend you download the map and programme and work out for yourselves how much you can see over the next two weekends, with apologies for not cherry picking. I know that lots of people have been working really hard to show you something you might like – there has got to be more than just the surface, and definitely something that works for you better than a QR code...See you there – or rather, HERE...!

Deptford X 2011

The Deptford X website now has full details of the 2011 programme, running over two weekends from Friday 23rd September to Sunday 2nd October.

The main programme features work by artists responding to the theme set by the lead artist-curators Hew Locke and Indra Khanna. Other sections include the Renewal Award in which artists' images have been chosen to go on billboards around the area – also featuring four artists selected to exhibit on billboard sites in both Poland and Deptford as part of ArtMoves Festival; and Deptford X Fringe where artists responding to the theme can be found in smaller venues – culminating in an Art Quiz at the Dog and Bell on the last Sunday. 

Meanwhile, other shows and events not specifically programmed by Deptford X will be taking place in 14 other Deptford galleries and venues (see Gallery Listings) and most of the main studio spaces in the area will be opening up for either one or both weekends (see Open Studios).

We are looking forward to Ben Parry's Deptford Machine (above), a sound sculpture created from damaged goods and shop trophies donated by local traders that will be sited at the Utrophia Project Space. Last year Ben's noisy milk float charmed visitors as it trundled and clanked around the area. We also note Katie Surridge's Fed Up – a collection of elaborately decorated oversized bird feeders to be sited next door to us in Sue Godfrey Nature Park. Of course there are far too many artists participating to mention here, but among those selected for the main programme we have checked one or two who at first glance appear to be dealing with familiar Deptford themes: Adam Vass, Amy Lord, Bridgette Ashton & Nicole Mollett, and Nicholas Cornwell.

There are also two walking tours during the festival: one by Q-Art on Saturday 1st Oct, 2–4.30pm for which you have to book (see the Main Programme), and one by Productlkj which starts at The Old Police Station (Wed-Sat 12noon–4pm) where you will be given an MP3 player and map (see Fringe Programme).

Deptford X co-curator Hew Locke is one of the artists featured in the Folkestone Trienniale this year which continues until 25th September. It is well worth the visit to see his beautiful installation For Those in Peril on the Sea in St Mary & St Eanswythe Church (the oldest building in Folkestone), consisting of around 100 model ships suspended from the nave.

Deptford X reminder

 

Barbeque chicken at 3pm today...Is that lunch sorted?

Also Open Studios today at the Old Police Station (12-6pm on Amersham Vale), Lewisham Art House (12-6pm on Lewisham Way) and Childers Street Studios (11-6pm back of beyond, the clue is in the title, New Cross, worth a visit if you like Open Studios). Plus Gallery shows at APT, APT Plots (next to APT), Bearspace (High Street), Core Gallery (Creekside), St Paul's House (High Street), Gimcrack (Broadway), Utrophia (Tanner's Hill), Arch Gallery (across the road in Resolution Way), ...and loads more...LAST CHANCE TO SEE all of it....

The theme of the festival was about coming upon things unexpectedly, so the above guide is equally vague, as is the general publicity (www.deptfordx.org) regarding times...Art tourists are advised to start at Arch Gallery and pick up a DX Rickshaw to get them to their destination...the Deptford Art Map has further misinformation. 

The website money appears to have been spent on making some great offers: WIN £50 if you GET INVOLVED and not on any design of the website that might make it easier to get around.

Performance artist Mark McGowan has already courted controversy with his performance at APT last Saturday (see Raoul Moat stage show sparks fury). Brockley Central have already debated this, amusingly. The Deptford X team have no idea who gave the story to The Sun and Sky News that kept their phones ringing all day last Monday. 

Perhaps they should be worried about the rather beautiful and equally shocking show at St Paul's House by Wayne Lucas and Julia Bardsley. Transpontine has already posted about this...See for yourself...Find them right next door to the Deptford Project's train cafe...See it before you eat...or go and see when your stomach is settled....Wayne and Julia may be there to gauge your shock and disgust...(people have been walking in and walking right out)...

There is so much to see it does yer head in. Open Studios today require a bit of a walk (or rickshaw ride from Arch Gallery), but meanwhile on Creekside there is still stuff to see...

The installation in the Creek on Ha'Penny Hatch is unfortunately somewhat depleted since some thieves came and took 20% of it yesterday....It appears they only took the expensive stuff. None of it is insured since the main risk was considered to be the river. Oddly the river hasn't damaged the installation (after apparently 27 or 28 tides), so the artist is a bit miffed that the thieves didn't wait till Monday when the festival is finished.