PRESS RELEASE

Network Sonia Boyce Peckham Space, College of Art, 89 Peckham High Street, SE15 5RS 13 September – 19 November 2011, Launch event 13 September May 6-8pm

Peckham Space presents Network, a specially commissioned film from artist Sonia Boyce, which explores how forms of social communication such as mobile phones and social networking sites like Facebook have become the most popular ways for young people to maintain their relationships with friends and family.

The artist worked with Council‟s Visual And Performing Arts (VAPA) Young Women‟s Group to chart the nature of these relationships and the languages that have formed around these technologies. The exhibition will comprise a series of films, choreographed in the gallery space as an installation: a set of dialogues featuring the young people in front of as well as behind the camera.

Shot in cinematic high definition, the Network film follows the journeys of four young women from their homes to their weekly VAPA group meeting through the different street systems of South East London. Once there, the young women explain their networks and friendship groups, previously mapped out in collaboration with oral historian Verusca Calabria. The conversations happen face to face and on mobile phones, but the identity of their partner is not revealed: all four young women are involved in the same discussion, bypassing the boundaries of the concurrent discussions.

Sonia Boyce said: “I was particularly interested in the type of conversations that are generated and amongst groups of young people. I wanted to explore their inter-connected micro-communities, and that boundary between the public and the private that is bridged online and through personal mobile phones. It‟s fascinating to me that young people‟s communities can reach geographically and culturally distant areas through the use of new technology, and how this can challenge traditional notions of the concept of „community.”

For this commission, Peckham Space worked with VAPA to draft the project brief and invited two of its young women members to join the selection panel that interviewed and commissioned the artist. Fahmeeda Khan, a member of the VAPA Young Women‟s Group said: “We wanted to work with artist Sonia Boyce for this project because we liked that she wanted to make a film which looked at social networking and mobile phones from our point of view: at school and at home we often face negative opinions of these technologies. I hope that Network shows how these ways of communicating are important to us, and gives people an insight into the way young people today stay in touch with their friends, classmates and family members.”

On 13th October 2011, Artist Sonia Boyce will be in conversation with cultural critic Bonnie Greer, discussing how the artist has explored modern concepts of communities used oral history to develop Network‟s themes.

Network at Peckham Space heralds the fifth exhibition in London‟s newest purpose-built art venue which opened in June 2010 with a new approach to commissioning, making and exhibiting art. Peckham Space is an arts organisation that is part of Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

Free public events will take place during the exhibition, including the artist in conversation with Bonnie Greer. Please call 020 7358 9645 or [email protected] for more information. For further information or press enquiries please contact Sarah McLean on 07904637569 or [email protected].

Notes for Editors

Sonia Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in the burgeoning black British art-scene of that time – becoming one of the youngest artists of her generation to have her work purchased by the Tate Gallery, with paintings that spoke about racial identity and gender in Britain. Since the 1990s Boyce‟s practice has taken a more multi-media and improvisational approach by bringing people together to speak or sing about the past and the present. Boyce has exhibited extensively throughout the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions and monographs include: Devotional, National Portrait Gallery, London (2007); Like Love, Spike Island, Bristol and tour (publication by the Green Box Press, , 2010); Afro Modern, Tate Liverpool and tour, 2010; and, The Impossible Community, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (forthcoming autumn 2011). Boyce has just completed an AHRC Research Fellowship at Wimbledon College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London with her concluding research project the Future is Social, and holds a Visiting Professorship at Middlesex University, in the Department of Fine Art. Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA), is part of Southwark Youth Service and offers local young people aged 11-19 access to training and facilities in a variety of visual and performing arts activities, in both an evening and after-schools setting. Young Women‟s Group is one of the regular sessions and is delivered in partnership with Groundwork. The session runs on a weekly basis and offers a safe space for young women to come together, share ideas and learn new skills in a welcoming environment, supported by experienced groupwork practitioners and artist educators. Louise Doherty, the project coordinator, established YWG in 1997 and has worked to ensure young women in Southwark have safe, creative spaces to meet and learn together. This ethos is carried through to all of the sessions and programmes VAPA offers. www.southwark.gov.uk/vapa Peckham Space is London‟s newest purpose-built public gallery dedicated to commissioning location-specific artworks made in partnership with community groups. Located on Peckham Square, London SE15 and part of Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, it seeks to encourage progression routes for young people into creative higher education as well as increase access to cultural and educational activity in Peckham, London SE15. Peckham Space is funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), Southwark Council and Arts Council England. The permanent venue, designed by PENSON, opened on Saturday 12 June 2010. Peckham Space has been delivering collaborative arts projects since June 2008. The Director Emily Druiff has worked as an independent curator with particular interest in participatory practice, new media and art in the public realm. Peckham Space commissioned artists have so far include David Cotterrell, Jessica Voorsanger, Harold Offeh, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, FREEE, Gayle Chong Kwan, The People Speak, Lottie Child & Furtherfield.org, and Neal White & Manu Luksch. www.peckhamspace.com South London Art Map Last Fridays is a late night opening of all galleries in South London on the last Friday of every month. During Network Peckham Space will be open for Last Fridays on 30 September 6-8:30pm and 28 October 6-8:30pm. The South London Art Map is a one-stop resource for the visual arts in South London from to Greenwich. www.southlondonartmap.com

Listings information

Peckham Space - Network by Sonia Boyce Peckham Space, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London 89 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5RS

Opening times 13 September – 19 November 2011. FREE Launch event 13 September 2011, 6-8pm. Tuesday-Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, closed Sundays, Mondays.

Talks and Events A programme of free public talks and events will accompany this exhibition at Peckham Space. Booking required - 020 7358 9645 or [email protected]

Transport: Buses: 343 from London Bridge, 78 from Liverpool Street/Aldgate, 12 or 171 from Elephant & Castle, 36 or 436 from Victoria/Oval Rail: and Queens Road direct from London Bridge