Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 15th of November for “Origin Myth”, taken from my upcoming feature film “RAFT” and featuring Mikey Kirkpatrick’s flute loops, recorded live at the Horse Hospital as part of Raft Festival.

Edit

To celebrate the opening of “RAFT- A FRAGILE DISPLAY”, an exhibition and festival running at The Horse Hospital from the 10th of June until the 8th of July, this month we travel back to the very beginning of our journey, almost 4 years ago!

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 17th of May as we revisit episode 1, featuring Gareth Evans and Bird Radio.

++++++++++++++++++

RAFT – A FRAGILE DISPLAY

The Horse Hospital voyages by RAFT! 

An exhibition, residency and festival by Chiara Ambrosio (& friends).

10th June – 8th July 2022

Private View: 10^th June, 6-9pm

Closing party: 8^th July, 6-9pm

Join filmmaker / artist Chiara Ambrosio for a month-long séance, conjuring images, dreams, nightmares and fairy tales reaped and sowed in the city of London.

Part exhibition, part shrine, part alchemical laboratory, The Horse Hospital will be transformed into a raft, its walls covered in paper over which Chiara will evoke the spirit of the city with humble mediums to create a fragile display, a constellation, a monument, a temporary site-specific configuration of people, objects, practices, ideas, histories, dreams and visions.

As she works, Chiara will be joined daily by many of her creative fellow travellers for events, workshops and informal conversations, in a subversive physical intervention joining the dots across the city of London, connecting and celebrating those who, through their practice, are committed to creativity and the imagination as a sacred trust, a right, and duty. 

An artist’s studio, a living archive, and an aerial- receiving and broadcasting at once- RAFT will constitute a temporary autonomous zone of convergence and exchange, a crossroads where people and ideas will meet in a constant state of emergency.

Expect the unexpected: films, works on paper, amulets, performances, stories, books, incantations, song, sound and more, in an ever shifting and changing phantasmagoria of light and shadow.

RAFT is an ark, a garden and a temple.

RAFT is a vessel for home-grown and independent organizations, individuals, spaces, and members of the audience and of local communities. 

RAFT is an antidote to the rising tides of social and cultural erasure in the city. 

RAFT is a monument, an elegy to London- both its real and dream spaces.

RAFT is a shelter.

RAFT is an ongoing project by filmmaker and visual artist Chiara Ambrosio, which includes a feature film and a monthly radio show on Resonance 104.4fm.

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 18th of April for a walk through the magical Pollock’s Toy Museum with its director, artist Jack Fawdry Tatham.

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 15th of March for a low tide walk along the river Thames with performance artist Shaun Caton.

Shaun Caton is a British performance artist and painter, who has created over 280 live performances worldwide since the early 1980s. Often characterised by extreme duration (some performances have lasted 3 weeks) or brevity (some performances just 17 minutes), his works incorporate the installation of ancient and organic items, with the making of gigantic paintings, often illuminated by ultraviolet lighting. These works strongly reflect prehistoric or apocalyptic imagery.

Featuring musical excerpts from Shaun’s animations composed by Alice Kemp.

SONG OF THE CITY

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 15th of February for a sonic journey through the city of London. Let the voices of people, animals, the elements, concrete, metal and dust sing their song to you…

Recorded and edited by Chiara Ambrosio

“All The Shades of Green” composed and performed by Bird Radio.

RAFT: A FRAGILE DISPLAY (a work in progress)

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm at 5pm on Tuesday 18th of January for a first walk into the universe of Raft the movie, where all voices, songs and stories from previous Raft episodes begin to converge, collide and unite to form a cacophonous portrait of our fair and unfair London town…

Featuring the voices, songs and stories of:

Bird Radio/ John Bently/ Andrea Luka Zimmerman/ Nawroz Oramari/ James Hesford/ Jeremy Reed/ Chiara Ambrosio/ Gareth Evans

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm on Tuesday 16th of November at 5pm for episode 36 of Raft!

This month I am joined by the Alchemy team, featuring recordings from the Alchemy Takeover of the NX Records record store in New Cross, London, on 13.11.2021. With performances by Alchemy artists, Rezon8 and the UYT Collective.

Alchemy is an evolving collective of professional artists, youth workers and Goldsmiths university student ambassadors and placement students working with Lewisham organisations and schools to offer a wide range of professional music skills training, mentoring and performance opportunities to local 13-18 year olds. The project is led by musician and associate lecturer in music and education Mikey Kirkpatrick, made possible by Goldsmiths (Widening Participation, Music, Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies Departments in partnership with The Albany, Deptford.

Instagram: @goldsmithsalchemy

Alchemy was originally founded by musician and associate lecturer in music and education Mikey Kirkpatrick in partnership with Jake Armstrong (Addey and Stanhope School) and Lucy Grace Trotman from the Widening Participation team in April 2017, with support from Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies youth work placement students James MacGregor and Marie-Jo Lasme. It began as a 10-week pilot working with 15 students and quickly grew into a weekly Saturday Club in the music department at Goldsmiths, offering the young participants the same access to high quality resources used by music degree students. The project has now worked with over 100 young people, released multiple mixtapes and given performances for Goldsmiths University, Lewisham Live, Lewisham People’s Day, The Albany Theatre, The Migration Museum and more. Many participants have gone onto music colleges such as ELAM, and two recent Alchemy ‘graduates’ began degrees at Goldsmiths in 2020.  Ex-participant Kieron Morris aka KamZz has also launched his own youth label Rezon8 in partnership with Alchemy and The Albany in Deptford.

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm on Tuesday 19th of October at 5pm for episode 35 of Raft!

This month I am joined by artist Tereza Stehlikova for a walk through her exhibition “Ophelia in Exile”, currently on show at the Czech Centre in London until the 15th of January 2022.

We also explore ideas at the foundation of her new editorial venture, Tangible Territory Journal. Issues 1, 2 and 3 are available here.

Credits for this month’s episode:

• A conversation with Tereza Stelikhova

• Audio extract from the video installation part of “Ophelia in Exile”

• “Square Circle” written and performed by Bird Radio

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm on Tuesday 21st of September at 5pm for episode 34 of Raft!

This month I am joined by researcher, writer and lecturer Ross Macfarlane. Together we set off towards the edge of London, to find out what happens there, and on the way we encounter different kinds of end and departure points, and reconfigure our compasses according to a new set of coordinates.

Tune into Resonance 104.4fm on Tuesday 20th of July at 5pm for episode 33 of Raft!

This month I am joined by writer, artist and performer Ella Finer, to talk about irresponsible entanglements and how to turn around in our memories to discover new forms of commitment to place and one another.

Credits for this month’s episode:

The Exorcist- written and performed by Mikey Kirkpatrick