Workshop: a love letter to ‘Castles’ – an alternative characterisation of Ends with Nabil Al-Kinani
Saturday 9th November 2024 , 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Expanding on ideas of the beauty of Ends, homemaking, and spatial justice in his photo project Castles, join Nabil Al-Kinani as we mediate on and pay homage to the neighbourhood urban spaces that we hold dear.
Castles is a photo project by Nabil Al-Kinani that centres on the preservation and archiving of social housing estates across London. It’s an exploration of the things we attribute ‘beauty’ to and the need to disrupt mainstream discourses which seek to portray these spaces as inhabitable, anti-social, and derelict.
Through photography, Nabil wants to offer an alternative characterisation of Ends:
- The Ends are modern-day castles
- These modern-day castles are inhabited by kings and queens
- And the Ends, along with its inhabitants, are nothing short of beautiful
Drawing parallels across time between the ethos of Castles and the East London Group’s work immortalising and paying homage to the streets and scenes of the everyday east London they lived in, in this workshop we will reflect on the local urban spaces and places that we each associate with home, memory, and community.
Nabil will pose a series of questions and prompts for you to respond to build out your own love letter or written response to an urban space of that is of particular significance to you and that you would like to share and celebrate the beauty of.
All writing and art-making materials are provided – no writing experience needed!
Things to bring along with you
Nabil encourages you to bring along some photographs or images of urban spaces that are special to you or hold a particular significance that you might like to respond to in this workshop.
This event will take place in our breakout space at Bow Arts Trust, 183 Bow Road, E3 2SJ.
Concession rate applies to students, over 65s, under 18s, Bow Arts artists, National Art Pass members, and key workers
More about Nabil Al-Kinani
By day, Nabil Al-Kinani is a built-environment professional with a keen interest in urbanism, placemaking, sustainable development and place vision. By night, he is a writer and cultural producer that uses creative practice to deliver changemaking projects that draw focus on the relationship between spaces and stories. Other strands of his work includes the exploration of spatial politics, identity, culture and migration.
Access information
The Bow Arts Trust breakout space has step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system. Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.
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 nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 3967 1643.
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 or anything else you can think of!
Transport Information
Opening hours: Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm
Address: Bow Arts Trust, 183 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ
Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.
Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.
Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.
