Art Teachers Should Have The Space To Be Rebellious, is a creative research project commissioned by Freelands Foundation considering the boundaries, motivations and possibilities for rebellion and creativity as an artist and teacher with Freya Kehoe, Head of Art at Haverstock School. Brinton and Kehoe have been meeting regularly since November 2023 to explore this idea through conversation, exchange and interventions in the school environment.
The process began with a series of studio and gallery visits during which the idea for producing a Freedom Portal Planner 2004, emerged. Designed and printed at Good Studio, Brixton on the risograph. The calendar was designed to act as a framing device for the year, accommodating and prompting with images created by Kehoe and phrases and instructions gathered during her conversations with Brinton such as: dozing, a space for rest, making time and title your day.
A series of school visits included the identification and transformation of a small section of the art cupboard, transforming it into Kehoe's much hoped for space to rest or perhaps a space for thought. A small desk, artwork created by teachers in the dept and a shelf for inspirational objects and books were added. Mirror film was added to the door to increase the privacy of teachers using the space.
In clearing the cupboard a pottery wheel was discovered and became part of the daily practice prompts for the project. Pots were thrown regularly at both school and during the relocation of the project to Freelands Gallery where the project was opened to contributions via a series of events including a reading group, an ARTISTEACHER session, and a celebration meal of porridge using the fired and glazed vessels.
Paint it whatever you like as long as it’s not just magnolia!
The opening gambit from the Porters in a conversation about the refurbishment of their space was one that I kept coming back to. In Spring 2022 GOSH Arts invited me to re-ignite an existing relationship with the Portering team, with the aim of celebrating and reflecting the invaluable contribution they make to the staff members who they work alongside each day, GOSH patients and their families.
We started with a conversation, brief tour and an invitation for the team to share their thoughts on improvements to the mess room. The Porters congregated, calling to each other to join in and a wide ranging discussion took place. A new light switch; USB charging ports; pigeon-holes on the wall; a connection to outdoors; team photos; a sign for Receipts and Distribution; and what about wind chimes? The list was long.
Then, as we were leaving one of the Porters, Hayden, opened the door to the goods yard to reveal a spiral staircase and dusty courtyard “this is just where we go in and out” he said casually. It was perfect: light, airy and easily accessible, if we could get permission to use it. The idea for This Could be a Garden, an outdoor mess room for the Portering Team, began to form.
While waiting for confirmation on the refurb schedule, this reclaimed outdoor area became our base for a series of drop-in sessions that were easily accessible to Porters on shift, and which activated it. The origin of the word Porter is: one who carries burdens, and it became apparent the team were operating under pressure. To explore this relationship between pressure, care and control, pots of therapy clay were left in the mess room for the Porters to experiment with. Over a series of workshops they began to register their grip in clay, which would later be cast in bronze.
Much of the furniture in the existing mess room had been foraged by the team “everything’s from the car park”, they said. We celebrated this act of reclamation in the collaborative design and construction of the garden. Used post-bags were repurposed as planters, a Portering trolley was reworked into a seating bench and the Porters dug in low maintenance shade loving plants.
The final practical workshop was inspired by a request for a wind chime. Copper pipe remnants were drilled and cut by the Porters with help from Works. The pipes now strung beneath the spiral staircase chime melodically. Each of the Porters involved took time to contribute to the making of the garden: spray painting, cleaning, planting or just finding things to aid the process. A place built by many hands to pause and recharge in.
Commissioned by South London Gallery, Oasis Venture + Battersea Arts Centre as part of the Making Routes programme. Banner has since travelled to Peninsula Arts, Plymouth and the Sidney Nolan Trust. A short film made in conjunction with children at Oasis Venture was screened through the banner as part of a collaboration with Art Assassins, SLG.
Banner is series of vinyl hangings for public spaces. Based on research of public play spaces and the work of playground architect Aldo van Eyck a proponent of flexible structures ‘not tied down to a particular function’ which provide users with ‘the means of discovering things for themselves’.
Each banner has a circular aperture, cut by a group of people with an association to the space in which it is placed. The banner acts as a framing device and a point of transformation for play and communication. The structures are rehung periodically, forming hammocks or shelters, stages or doors, the hole at their centre offering an alternative view of a familiar space.
The project has involved discussion with a core group of advisors from each location including:
David Ogwe, staff, children and young people at Oasis Venture, Sarah Coffils, Laura Wilson, Art Assassins and Tiny Rebels With Attitude at SLG and the George Shearing Centre for young people with severe learning disabilities and complex needs.
Banner, vinyl, rope, eyelets, sand bags, dimensions variable, 2016 – present
Take A Part & The Box Plymouth
Coxside Cartographies is a creative history mapping project developed with Bridgette Ashton and Coxside communities. The mapping took place predominantly during the first lockdown of 2020 but came to fruition in 2021 once public workshops could be held.
Coxside Cartographies reflects on Plymouth’s past, present, and its connections to the wider world through migration, work and trade taking the sites of Coxside's historical porcelain factory and sugar refinery as starting points for considering the area’s history*. Incorporating walks and talks, remote activities and in person tea-reading sessions and porcelain workshops, we worked with local and regional communities including: Coxside Neighbourhood Group, Prince Rock Primary School, Plymouth and Devon Racial Equality Council, Nomony Multicultural Toddlers and Families, Plymouth City Council’s Natural Infrastructure team, and Plymouth Community Homes.
The accompanying publication brings together maps produced by project participants, and photographs taken on their daily ‘lockdown walks’ as an invitation and a guide for others to explore Coxside. In tracing the resident’s’ journeys and delving into the buildings, landscapes and horticulture they recorded, we can engage in a type of ‘local escapism’ that incorporates place, people and memory. In a series of walks, workshops and conversations that were held over the course of the project we hoped to also address the colonial legacies that emerged, from evidence of trade and travel, wealth and production but also via botany.
A mug edition, the Coxside Cuppa, was created alongside the project featuring a rope of plants including mint, rose and lavender – all plants local to Coxside used to make our own tea. The images of these plants that feature on the mug were sourced from Sir John St. Aubyn’s Herbarium at The Box Plymouth**. Their inclusion is a prompt to consider how botanical collections and the global pharmaceutical industry have benefited from the knowledge and specimens that were gathered during colonial activity. Different areas of the mug are labelled future and present to encourage those who drink from it to perform a tea reading with this in mind – to still their mind and let the tea steep.
Coxside Cartographies the exhibition took place at PS1 Plymouth College of Art and was commissioned and supported by TAKE A PART and The Box Plymouth.
* William Cookworthy’s factory on Sutton Wharf produced England’s first true hard-paste white porcelain, examples of which can be found in The Box Plymouth’s collection. Sugar cane, grown and harvested under slavery was processed at the Sugar House in Coxside in the 1830s.
** A herbarium is a collection of preserved plants that are stored, catalogued, and arranged systematically for study. A useful introduction to rethinking this subject is the conversation between Claire Ratinon & Sam Ayre, recorded in ‘Horticultural Appropriation’ (London: Rough Trade Books x Garden Museum, 2021)
Good Hope Works is a creative research project that engaged staff from across Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and culminated in the installation of a permanent artwork at the entrance of the hospital and another on the windows of the seven-story Morgan Stanley Clinical Building.
I worked with staff from across GOSH via one to one conversations, workshops and round table sessions, including members of the portering, play, clinical, admin and catering teams. Together we consider their shared values and personal experiences of working at GOSH. The conversations and ideas from these sessions were used to develop the two artworks, both of which include direct quotes from staff members.
The first is a custom-made flag for the Paul O’Gorman Building adjacent to the hospital, which reads ‘Every one, every day’ and the second is a vinyl artwork that spans the height of each window in the staff stairwell. Both works feature direct quotes from the conversations generated through the residency so that the staff see their words embedded in their environment on a daily basis.
The Morgan Stanley building’s seven floor staircase with floor to ceiling windows presented a location in which the words of the staff could be read by those within the hospital and seen by passers by. ‘The world outside should take note’, featured on the fourth floor window is a quote from a member of the Haematology team and was an important reminder of the importance of sharing the staff’s voices with the wider community. Above the doors of the neighbouring National Hospital for Neurology there is a low relief panel by A.J.J. Ayres which caught my eye. Carved from sandstone it depicts a pair of hands emerging from the sun offering a reclining woman the rod of Asclepius. The rod is wrapped with a snake, a symbol of healing and medicine often seen outside pharmacies. Binding, care, the wrapping of the snake and the zigzagging path of the stairs inspired the form of the text piece which came to wind its way up the windows of the Morgan Stanley building. Mirroring the passage of staff and families as they climb from floor to floor is a serpentine of translucent vinyl text that casts multicoloured projections across the corridor when the sun shines.
‘Every one, every day’, was a phrase dropped casually into conversation, but an idea strengthened by repetition as I spoke to the staff at Great Ormond Street. The child first, and always, the hospital’s motto, is a person centred guiding principle that pushes empathy to the fore. If we think of each and every child as important, than in turn we must also value and care for each other as we have all been that child that we are working so hard for. More than one person mentioned the importance of addressing the individual rather than their race or religion ‘when you come in here everyone is treated equally’. Every day, reflected the cyclical nature of work, of routine and of a commitment which was reflected in the staffs longevity. The first member of the team I spoke to had worked for the hospital for 19 years, but this was swiftly capped by those with 35, and 48 years and I found generations working together, in their own words ‘like family’.
Tasseography: Future Tea
Research project and event
Future Tea is an ongoing exploration into local plant traditions and tasseography, commonly known as tea reading. The project has involved discussion with local horticulturalists, gardeners and allotment owners as well as curators, school children and the team from Thrive to locate and harvest plants traditionally used to make tea.
The project aims to unite past and present through the gathering and brewing of herbal tea, offering an opportunity to pause, drink, share conversation and consider alternative futures in our time pressured century.
The project was included in Pump House Pavillion using plant specimens local to Pump House Gallery and Battersea Park, in particular lavender, which was historically farmed on the site and roses which are planted in the park’s Summer Garden.
Tasseography: Future Tea was commissioned by Pump House Gallery, in partnership with Nine Elms, London and Chelsea Fringe. Future Tea was developed from an original residency for Whitechapel.
Copies of the instructions for Tasseography: Future Tea are available for remote access to the project. Please do get in touch.
Pump House Pavilion images courtesy of Eoin Carey
Southwark Park Galleries
In Spring 2020 the Good Studio RZ370EP Risograph printer travelled to Dilston Grove for Colour Lab – a temporary Risograph print station in the Dilston Gallery, Southwark Park. We hosted a week long series of family workshops culminating in the production of a collaborative book work.
Over five days we explored Risograph printing and book binding processes including CMYK colour experiments with ink blot Colour Mix Creatures, Park Portrait monoprints.
Together we printed, collated and bound an A5 publication for each family to take home, copies of which were available in the gallery shop.
If you would like to Good Studio to host print workshops in your space do get in touch.
Southwark Council & Friends of Kelly Avenue
Psittacula Krameri is a shelter, meeting and play space designed in collaboration with local users of Central Venture Park. The aim of the project was to open up a a conversation about access and belonging in public space. Psittacula krameri, are members of the parrot family better known as ring-necked or rose-ringed parakeets, a non native species whose presence in London parks have caused much debate.
A temporary studio was set up in the main building for residents to engage with the design process, share their views and experiment with materials. Over a six-month period two school groups took part in a series of workshops, a community celebration day was held and a month’s artist residency took place.
The sail-like structure functions as a gathering point, has a range of fittings and fixtures to allow flags to be flown and play and craft activities to take place. Funding is being sought to continue the development of the Psittacula Krameri.
Commissioned by Southwark Council, with thanks to Friends of Kelly Avenue Park
Good Hope
flag weave, eyelets, rope
2015 – 16
Good Hope is a series of flags and events produced for Plymouth Hoe Gardens over the course of a year. The project takes inspiration from a bag of Cape of Good Hope stamps, bought by Plymouth businessman Edward Stanley Gibbons from sailors in the 1860’s. The stamps were unusually valuable and enabled him to establish himself; an unexpected change of circumstance that boosted his self belief.
Based on traditional flags, the designs were arrived at through engagement with a variety of groups including gardeners, local residents and school children. Local flag makers were engaged to produce the flags which were sewn and made from flag weave. With each flag raising an event was organised by the participants their hopes and beliefs.
A mark that moves
reinforced acrylic sheet, posts
14m x 1m
2015 – 16
One of the problems of the Hoe Garden site is its inaccessibility. To counter this, A mark that moves, a fourteen-metre reflective board was installed to the rear of the space mirroring the surrounding environment. In this way visitors may be seen to enter the gardens, which are ordinarily locked. Nearby landmarks can be glimpsed in its surface and become transient features of the garden as viewers move around the site.
Good Hope was commissioned by Plymouth City Council and supported by Plymouth Culture, Arts Council England, Plymouth Arts Centre and the Hoe Conservation and Residents Association
National Trust Saltram + Take A Part
The Stack + The Circle are collaborative builds produced as part of a project with National Trust Rangers, volunteers and a local family group. They form part of a heritage trail in the grounds of Saltram House charting the history of the site and drawing parallels between the relationship between land ownership and power, in the 1800’s and today.
The Stack or Holzhausen is a traditional method of storing wood which differs significantly from a regular woodpile because different types and sizes of material can be incorporated, from sticks to stumps, without having to be carefully selected and placed. As such it lends itself to a collective build. In contrast the house-like form of the stack which is built invites visitors to circumnavigate the structure in search of a door, only to discover there is no way in.
As an act of assertion members of Crazy Glue sourced ingredients from around the estate and developed a magenta dye from elderberries. The dye was then painted on the cut ends of the logs as a colourful power grab increasing the sculpture’s misplaced presence in the otherwise ‘natural’ landscape, casting it as a bright pink oddity.
A series of logs were installed in a circle with the same footprint as the stack, functioning as The Stack’s opposite with an invitation to enter, to sit and discuss. A series of workshops and discussions were developed for The Circle.
With thanks to Take A Part’s ‘Crazy Glue’, Nick Allison Outdoor Manager and Bob Mayer, Woods Team.
A LOOP, A HOOP
Schools Project and Residency
Whitechapel Gallery
2014
A LOOP, A HOOP was a residency based between Smithy Street School and the Whitechapel gallery in a six-week journey to explore the history of the local area and experiment with time, space and order.
The project was informed by research at Tower Hamlet Local Archives where Victorian maps showed the school was built on the site of a parchment works and bindery. The project began at Smithy Street and ended at Aldgate Press next to the Whitechapel Gallery. Along the way stories were told, CMYK bagels were baked and Fireweed was gathered from the school playground to brew Future Tea.
A folded publication printed at Aldgate Press, A Loop, A Hoop charts the project's evolution.
Download a PDF version here:
A Loop, A Hoop
This project was commissioned by Whitechapel Gallery and supported by Stavros Niarchos Foundation
An Invitation
A Monument to Youth
Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project
2012
An Invitation was a one day live art event based outside the original CLR James Library, Dalston.
A group of 16-25 year-olds from Whitechapel Gallery’s Young People’s Programme provided passers by with a selection of texts by CLR James, a loudspeaker, reading chair and an invitation to sit, stand, read and discuss his work.
The project explored free speech and thinking as part of a week long Summer Academy. The group visited an anarchist bookshop, a co-operative press, Speaker’s Corner, and the new CLR James Library. On discovering there were no books available in the new library written by its namesake the group developed An Invitation, a temporary public artwork outside the library.
An Invitation was commissioned as part of Elmgreen & Dragset’s A Monument to Youth as part of the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project
COSMIC PHARMACY
Schools project
South London Gallery
Cosmic Pharmacy explored the materials and methods of Rashid Johnson.
Working with musician Babak Ganjei and Year 4-6 classes from four primary schools to hijack domestic products, record and produce a CD of chants and created paper peace plants for the exhibition Cosmic Pharmacy.
Each of the school groups involved were invited to visit the Cosmic Pharmacy at South London Gallery, which re-contextualized their work, and every participant received a copy of a CD of the chants and stories produced during the project.
This project was supported by the Great Art Quest and South London Gallery
Working with students from St. Michael’s and All Angels in Peckham in response to Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle I produced a film which was shown at the Africa Centre and in cinemas around the country. Over two months the students identified and explored questions of Britishness culminating in a performance developed and directed by the group. The piece in which members of the group were wrapped in coloured cloth was documented by photographer Sophia Schorr-Kon.
