King’s Cross and Central Saint Martins partner for first official artist-in-residence programme Copy
King’s Cross and Central Saint Martins have today, Friday 9 February, announced that they have partnered on their first official artist in residence programme – with art and design collective, The Decorators to create an installation and activations in the public realm.
The Decorators is a collective of designers and artists that produce works in areas undergoing change, such as King’s Cross. Working at the human scale alongside large scale developments, they collaborate with local people to create experiences that prototype new community relations, networks and uses.
Titled Nu Moment, The Decorators’ project will see a sculptural installation which is both a temporary monument and a stage – which has been created for Granary Square to showcase some of the talented young people from King’s Cross and Camden. The project will also temporarily unveil some of the hidden artistic histories of King’s Cross, including music, dance and performance.
Taking inspiration from collectives such as The Mutoid Waste Company, a radical performance group that used waste and scrap to create immersive sets for exhibitions and parties, the work will build towards two key moments in 2024. First, in February 2024, a dance challenge trail will weave together the organic emergence of dance groups around the estate with the legacy and present environment of King’s Cross. Working closely with local youth groups and young dancers who visit the area. Then, in May 2024, the residency will culminate with a major public installation and series of performances that showcase local young artists, musicians and dancers.
King’s Cross has a long history of young people coming together through creative moments of individual and collective self-expression in public. The rave and clubbing scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s saw King’s Cross become a global centre of innovation and creativity through the production of cutting-edge sounds and ‘free-parties,’ which combined the latest technologies with a DIY approach, using whatever was at hand to transform empty derelict spaces into temporary magical, sensorial environments.
The project will be scoped and developed in collaboration with members of the social enterprise FishTank and students from MA Narrative Environments and M ARCH: Architecture (Central Saint Martins), amongst others.
Xavier Llarch Font, The Decorators, said: “Nu Moment” the result of a long-term interest we have regarding issues of perception and accessibility faced by young people in public spaces. We are excited to use our role as artist-in-residence to work across departments in King’s Cross, CSM and in partnership with remarkable local youth organisations to generate new creative opportunities that advocate for the role of young people as producers and playful users of the public realm”.
Chrissy Cullen, place marketing director, King’s Cross, added: “We have been running our Artist-in-Residence programme for a number of years, but this is the first time we have officially partnered with CSM to deliver the project. We are very excited to be working with The Decorators to bring Nu Moment to King’s Cross, where we hope young people with an interest in the arts – and how they use the public spaces around them – will engage in the co-creation of the works.”
Stephanie Sherman, Course Leader MA Narrative Environments, Central Saint Martins, said: MA Narrative Environments is thrilled to include the collaboration between The Decorators and Argent. We work on the premise that all environments are an inextricable combination of natural and artificial, physical and digital, interior and exterior, and that no project can be separate from a social purpose agenda of planetary reprogramming. A team of six YR1 students are working with Xavi on core research into the history of repurposing surplus in Kings Cross, the existing surplus materials, and developing a platform for codesign with the local community. We are delighted to work with Xavi and the Decorators. King’s Cross has built a reputation as a London arts and culture destination, using its public spaces and buildings to showcase artworks from a huge variety of artists and sculptors such as Adam Nathaniel Furman, Lucy Orta, Eva Rothschild and Tess Jaray, street artists such as Andy Leek and Rana Begum and painter and curator, Rashid Araeen.
Image: Dancer, Keisha Prescod
Image: ©Brendan Bell