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
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