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Festival of Communities: exploring what your neighbourhood and east London mean to you with Woo Jin Joo and Bow Arts
Saturday 8th June 2024 , 11:30am to 4:30pm
Come join Bow Arts at this year’s Festival of Communities! From soft play and give-it-a-go sports, to Queen Mary Researchers and community organisations running thought-provoking and hands-on activities, there’s something for everyone to get stuck in with.
The Fesitval of Communities has been cancelled by the organisers, Queen Mary University of London.
The Festival of Communities is an annual festival that celebrates everything that makes east London a fantastic place to be! It brings together hands-on demonstrations of local research and services, loads of fun family activities, food stalls, and games, to create fun for all ages and interests.
Joining in with the fun festivities on the day, in our Bow Arts booth, you’ll find members of our team on hand all day to chat about all the exciting projects, exhibitions, and events in the pipeline and all the different ways that you can get involved!
We will also be running a free, drop-in, family-friendly workshop with one of our brilliant artist educators and East London Art Prize shortlisted artist Woo Jin Joo, all around exploring your own personal memories and connections to east London and what makes it such a special place.
In this workshop, we’ll be collaging a ‘page in a diary’ to pay homage to the joyful and personal memories we have of east London and our communities that make us who we are. Using a range of fun textures and materials, Woo Jin will encourage children to create small vignettes held inside special ‘mini frames’ on their individual diary page, each one depicting a familiar memory, place, person, object, or feeling that you connect with east London and your local neighbourhood.
In this workshop, children will learn how to cut, paste, and collage different shapes and textures to compose 2D or more sculptural ‘pages’ in a diary.
Our stand at the festival is an inclusive, friendly environment which is accessible for all abilities and age groups. All materials are provided and no experience is necessary!
The Festival of Communities will take place in Stepney Green park, E1 3DB.
More about Woo Jin Joo
Woo Jin is a mixed-media artist specialising in soft sculpture. Taking cues from traditional East Asian folklore, mysticism and mythology, Woo Jin’s explores ways of re-enchanting stories around the everyday and mundane. Mediating on the value humans endow objects in our current materialist and consumerist society, Woo Jin playfully postulates a new way of living, being and learning from objects – one that is more caring and lasting. In her work, she subverts the more traditional, gently-spoken character of soft sculpture and textile, instead using them as conduits and means of engaging in the discourse around climate justice, capitalism, and more generative ways of living.
Taking found objects that are often overlooked, unnoticed and disposable, Woo Jin stitches and embellishes, working into and onto them in a radical act of transformation that imbues her objects with their own character and voice. Through her enchanting mystical creatures, she gently encourages us to reframe our thinking around the multitude of associations that everyday objects hold.
More about the Festival of Communities
The annual Festival of Communities celebrates everything that makes east London a fantastic place to live and work. We bring together hands-on demonstrations of local research and services, loads of fun family activities, food stalls, and games, to create fun for all ages and interests!
The festival was created by Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with Tower Hamlets community groups and organisations, to provide a space where everyone can come together, share experiences, and get involved in our borough in ways that we may not have had the opportunity to before.
Access information
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this 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 nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)
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 table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
Transport Information
Opening hours: 11.30am-4.30pm, Saturday 8 June
Address: Stepney Green Park, E1 3DB
Nearest station(s): Stepney Green station (District line and Hammersmith & City line)
