Picture's from Saturdays launch- What a great night!

The launch of our new Heygate Estate gallery space was very well received,  

with 200 people visiting us throughout the day and evening on Saturday and a further 50 on Sunday we are looking forward to welcoming many more people up onto our terrace!

Feature No.5

Feature No.5

The band STASH will be entertaining us on Saturday night!  

STASH is a London based Punk Psyche Blues band with roots in Maumee, Ohio, near the epicenter of the breeding ground for Midwest punk, rock and blues- the same pedigree as neighbours The MC5, The Stooges and The Necros. (And more recently, The White Stripes, The Black Keys and The Soledad Brothers, even though the latter are all pussies by comparison). 
Female fronted, this four piece band digs deep into rough, tough rock territory streaked with purist influences. The songwriting team of Midwesterners Riggio and Masiker leave The Glimmer Twins weeping in their milky English tea.

To experience a STASH gig is a cerebral stab in the heart: “They sound like The Count Five in a pub brawl with Joe Meek. The guitar sounds like Keef Richards wading through a Louisiana swamp, the drums are loose-limbed and staccato - every snare shot sounds like a handclap - and the whole rackety, lo-fi noisefest is presided over by a punk rock Barbarella, who lets rip a glorious howl of a vocal while giving a vintage synthesizer a good seeing-to. That's when she's not accosting the audience and hurling herself off stage.” (Michael Johnson, Nemesis)

STASH is launching their second single and first video “I Need A Sign” in October 2012.

STASH is completing their first album “Resistor,” due for early 2013 release.

STASH previously released their first 7”inch single, “Divide & Conquer/ Razors,”

which sold out through Rough Trade Records but is now available in a limited run on their website.

Their single “Dirty City” was featured on XFM (John Kennedy).

They are regularly featured on London radio: Camden Unsigned.com

STASH

Becky Masiker- Vocals, Moog

Nick Riggio- Guitar, Vocals

Cristian Pusceddu- Bass

Hiro Amamiya- Drums

Feature No.4

Feature No. 4

Eleanor Shipman will be screening her film 'Play Swap' in our exhibition opening on Saturday.

She will also be bringing along the ten metre long skipping rope that features in the film!

 Eleanor Shipman is a socially engaged artist living and working in London. 

She studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art.

Debate around regeneration, temporary public art and notions of community underpin her practice. Supported with a substantial body of ongoing research Eleanor’s work responds to and challenges public, urban and socio-political

tensions through encouraging and engaging real people. This often results in public workshops, walks, discussions and events as artistic outcomes.

Eleanor is particularly interested in human interaction with urban space recently investigated through her project PLAY SWAP, a six month residency funded by Near Neighbours at Pembroke House, a church and community centre in South London. The residency aimed to bring people of different cultural backgrounds together using the exploration and discussion of urban play. From play workshops with local schools, community groups, festivals and local residents to game collection, conversations, urban interventions and collaborations the project culminated in the production and screening of a short film with local 

residents which will be added to Southwark’s local archives. 

For Eleanor, art is a social medium. As she continues to pursue socially engaged art she is looking forward to more in-depth communication and research with 

different groups of people. Eleanor will embrace future challenges faced by 

socially engaged art and believes that this is an exciting beginning: its potential is yet to be fulfilled.

Eleanor Shipman

Socially engaged artist, writer and researcher

contact:

eleanorshipman.blogspot.com

@eleanorshipman

eleanorshipman@gmail.com 

Feature No. 3

Hamish Macpherson and Martine Painter will be performing their new performance work at 3pm on Saturday.

'Two people make something out of nothing. But how do they know they are dancing the same thing?'

 Hamish MacPherson and Martine Painter are choreographers, performance makers and dancers with a shared love of simple stylised movement. In addition to working in partnership together to both make dance and teach workshops, in the last 18 months they have also worked with Eva Recacha, Alexandrina Hemsley, Jose Campos, Tino Seghal and Antonio de le Fe Guedes.

To find out more, visit

http://www.hamishandmartine.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/hamishandmartine

Feature No. 2

Who better to feature next than Rebecca Davies? 

We have finished hanging her work today and it looks smashing! 

The illustrations exhibited as part of Elefest are a small selection from a number of drawings Rebecca has made over the last three years in the Elephant. She was brought up in the area and returned a few years ago. Living in the Elephant and Castle, you can't avoid the term regeneration and all that goes with it. For her it means change. But let's put that out of our minds a minute.  These illustrations are a celebration of the Elephant and its community - Now. 

 In 2010 Rebecca graduated with an MA in Communication Art and Design from Royal College of Art. Her illustrations of the Elephant and Castle got the Sheila Robinson Prize for Drawing and where short listed for the Helen Hamlyn Design Award. In 2011 Rebecca co-directed Studio at the Elephant, a unit in the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre acting as a studio for artists to work with the local community and providing a platform for locals to express themselves creatively. Studio at the Elephant celebrates local people and their cultural heritage. Rebecca has collaborated with organisations such as the Latin American Workers Association, LCC, Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern and South London Gallery. Currently she is working from an ice cream van based in Hackney City Farm, as part of the Interference project commissioned by Artsadmin.

You can see Rebecca's work during our launch for Elefest on Saturday 6th October and Sunday 7th!

Daily Feature No. 1

In the run up to our new Heygate gallery space opening for Elefest 2012 we will be posting daily features on the artist, musicians and performers involved in Saturdays launch.

Daily Feature No. 1

'Paka The Uncredible' 

Simon Collins also known as “Paka” is a unique interdisciplinary artist who creates spectacular and engrossing performance from a mix of large-scale mechanical sculpture, digital media, special effects, dramatic characters, circus skills, puppetry, and audience involvement.

He has worked extensively in Europe and the UK for 25 years, both collaborating and producing his own solo work.

His individual hybrid art-form has been developed and influenced by circus performers such as Archaos and the edgy, daring and dangerous traditions of European spectacular street theatre and festivals, - traditions which have also spawned contemporary companies such as Mutoid Waste, La Fura dels Baus, Derevo and the infamous DNTT of which Paka was a founding member and an Artistic Director from 1989 –1997.

His Theatre company Black Hole has since produced works such as, “The Singularity” and, more recently “Forget Me Not” – both of which have received wide spread critical acclaim in the UK. 

Horse Work 

He has been working with his horses for the last 10 years creating Don Quixote themed shows of differing styles and scales, from pyrotechnic spectaculars in Underground Art Festivals, Jaw dropping street animations in Beijing to theatrical mime for the London International Mime Festival.

The Characters

Paka is a cantankerous old man lost in the twilight of obsession, having misplaced the thread between fantasy and reality he is off on his final adventure. A head full of romantic dreams and a pocket full of nuts and bolts. He is on a quest for love and sunsets to ride into. A contemporary Don Quixote armed with roses, pyrotechnic gadgets and a tantalising whiff of razzmatazz.

Rusty the Horse is visually extraordinary, a remote control entity that acts as a people magnet. With his own distinct character, philosophy and ego, he leaves the audience feeling they have met an odd but real horse.

The theatre and mayhem are derived from the interaction between Paka, Rusty and the audience. It is in fact a double act albeit one half is robotic. The characters that inhabit this slice of parallel reality have an endearing universal relationship, where differences of priority and agenda have obscured the common goal.

The out-come is up for grabs….

New Dragon work

Life has constraints to freedom: Even if they are pleasurable.

What is left to us then but Fantasy?

Paka has been holed up in London for the last few years for various reasons...... in contrast to constantly touring.

What better than constructing fantasy creatures to pass the time?

A culmination of two years hard graft... Paka offers this preview of his new work

ELSIE dragon at the launch of Hotel Elephants new gallery space on the Heygate Estate.

A firery kinetic sculpture

As always work in progress but at a very presentable stage

Designed to be interactive in control...offering the public a chance to control its own fantasy creature. Your reactions and interactions will help shape a future theatrical context for this new beast.

Haygate Gallery Space launch for Elefest 2012

Saturday 6th October 12pm till late 

Hotel Elephant Gallery

27-29 Brandon Street

London 

SE17 1NA

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https://twitter.com/HotelElephant