East London Art Prize x Backyard Biennial: participatory workshops ‘Tangle/Untangle’ and live performance ‘Sand Suit 4.0’ with Lydia Newman
Saturday 25th July 2026 , 1:30pm to 4:30pm
Participatory workshops and a live performance exploring how bodies carry, share, and negotiate inherited and socially learned pressures.
East London Art Prize 2025 artist Lydia Newman will host two participatory workshops in collaboration with Jae Gibbs as space-holder, Tangle/Untangle (2026), where she uses sand-filled tights to create collective entanglement, exploring how bodies carry, share, and negotiate inherited and socially learned pressures. She will also present a live participatory performance, Sand Suit 4.0 (2026), an embodied storytelling work developed in dialogue with the workshops and her ongoing series In the Wake of Ruin.
‘Tangle/Untangle’ Workshops: 1.30-4.30pm Saturday 25 July & 2-4 pm Sunday 26 July 2026 (ticketed)
Developed by Lydia Newman in collaboration with Jae Gibbs as space holder, Tangle/Untangle is set within a crumbling cityscape and explores how inherited systems shape the ways bodies move, relate, adapt and understand themselves in relation to others.
In the first workshop, participants use sand-filled tights as a shared material to create a collective entanglement: negotiating, moving and collaborating to form a sculpture in constant motion. The second workshop centres on the slower act of untangling, inviting participants and witnesses to join Lydia in gradually unravelling the structure created the previous day, followed by a shared conversation held around the remains of the work.
The workshops are ticketed but drop-in participation is also welcome for the ‘Untangle’ workshop on Sunday 26 July 2026.
‘Sand Suit 4.0’ Performance: 7pm, Thursday 13 August 2026 (drop-in, relaxed performance environment)
Lydia Newman presents Sand Suit 4.0 (2026), the fourth iteration of an ongoing live participatory performance work with wearable sculpture, movement and spoken text.
First created in 2021 as a way of externalising emotional and societal weight, the Sand Suit has become a tool for Lydia to examine what she is carrying and how it might be worked with, released or transformed through performance. Heavy, unstable and easily tangled, the suit shifts with each iteration, keeping some elements and shedding others as the work continues to meet Lydia in her changing states.
Presented alongside Lydia’s ongoing painting series In the Wake of Ruin (2024–ongoing), Sand Suit 4.0 continues her exploration of weight, entanglement, transformation and rewilding.
These events are curated by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts in collaboration with Dr. Richard Martin, Director of Participation and Rebecca Gremmo, Associate Producer: Backyard Biennial at Whitechapel Gallery.
These workshops & performance will take place at Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, London, E1 7QX
More about Lydia Newman
Lydia Newman is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, live performance and creative facilitation. With over 15 years of participatory and socially engaged practice across the UK and internationally, her work explores how inherited histories, social structures and systems of survival shape the body, psyche and sense of self.
Her practice is deeply interconnected, with each medium feeding the other: images from live performances often appear in paintings, while forms, materials and themes from her paintings return through sculpture, workshops and performance. Her current body of work, In the Wake of Ruin (2024–ongoing), brings together painting, The Sand Suit – her wearable sculpture, live performance and participatory practice to explore weight, entanglement, rewilding and transformation.
Newman completed an MA in Performance Making at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2021, having previously studied Drama at Queen Mary, University of London. She was runner-up for the East London Art Prize 2025 and was awarded the New Emergence Art Prize 2025.
Recent performances and exhibitions include the East London Art Prize exhibition, Nunnery Gallery (2025); Sand Suit 2.0, Nunnery Gallery (2025); Sand Suit 3.0, Whitechapel Gallery as part of the East London Art Prize Gallery Takeover (2025); Coercive Contortion, The TATE INSTITUTE (2024); and The Renovation Revisited, All Hail Disordia, The Anatomy Theatre, Summerhall (2023). Newman was also a performer in Lygia Clark’s Corpo Coletivo and Elastic Net, Whitechapel Gallery (2024).
More about Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery is a ground-breaking arts institution located in the heart of London’s East-End – one of the most diverse and creative quarters in the world. Locally embedded and globally connected, the Gallery was founded in 1901 to enrich the cultural offer for the people of east London.
Over the years, Whitechapel Gallery has played host to some of the world’s most significant and visionary artists, showcasing art from across the globe, including China, Brazil and the Islamic world. Whitechapel Gallery is equally committed to supporting local artists and communities, many of whom come from, or reflect, the many migrants that have made Whitechapel and its surrounding areas their home.
Whitechapel Gallery’s Participation and Outreach programmes prioritise local communities, offering artist-led activities for all ages that encourage curiosity, learning and exchange. Whitechapel Gallery believes that art plays a critical role in firing imaginations, reflecting lived experiences, and opening up new possibilities for thinking, feeling and dreaming.
Access information
Please find the access information of Whitechapel Gallery here.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email info@whitechapelgallery.org or call 020 7522 7888.
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a seat near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
About the East London Art Prize Events Programme
The East London Art Prize Events Programme is a dynamic, free public programme open to all, which builds on the Prize’s ethos of providing ongoing support, development, and networking opportunities for artists in east London and beyond.
Featuring a constellation of workshops, talks, panels, lates, socials, labs, walks, and takeovers in collaboration with our Prize partners and featuring some familiar faces from our shortlist of 12 fantastic artists, this year’s events programme celebrates and pays homage to the huge abundance of talent and creativity nestled in east London.
These events have been developed by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts in collaboration with our Prize partners the British Council, The Line, London College of Fashion (LCF), London Legacy Development Corporation, University College London (UCL), V&A East, Whitechapel Gallery and Dulux.
Find out more about the wider programme here.
More about the East London Art Prize
The East London Art Prize is an all-media art prize designed to showcase the talent of artists working and living in east London, with an accompanying event programme supporting artists’ careers and opportunities. The Prize is generously funded by Minerva and Prue MacLeod. Find out more on the Prize webpage here.
