Dates

Friday 25th June - Sunday 5th September.

Grand Finale Closing Party Saturday 4th September 7-10pm

Join the legendary Apathay Band and artist Bob and Roberta Smith for a special evening of live performance and DJ’s to celebrate the voices of Thamesmead.

Opening hours

Thursday-Saturday 1pm-7pm, Sunday 12-5pm.

Location

Cannons Retail Park, 6 Twin Tumps Way, Thamesmead town centre, SE28 8RD

Over the last year, artist Bob and Roberta Smith interviewed people who live on the Thamesmead estate. He talked to some of its very first occupants and young people growing up during the Covid-19 pandemic. Smith then turned their conversations into placards.

A ‘codex’ was the ancestor of paper books. Here, the artist presents a modern-day codex or manuscript. He records the histories and identities of Thamesmead and its inhabitants.

From shop keepers, musicians, religious leaders, healthcare professionals, local entrepreneurs, students and artists, their first-hand tales and experiences, together weave a picture of how the area has transformed over the decades. The placard paintings reveal the often hidden stories behind a community: fascinating pasts, surprising presents and hopeful futures.

Alongside illustrative transcripts of these conversations, Bob has also painted images of the historic estate as it might appear in a dream, perhaps the one imagined by the first architects for Thamesmead.

“We can look at Thamesmead and create false assumptions about the area based on stories we may have heard or read about,” said Bob and Roberta Smith. “We could feel excited or oppressed by its utopian architecture, but by listening to the people who live on the estate or who are associated with it, who have diverse histories and stories to tell, we can get a clearer and more resonant impression of what the area is really like. That’s what we want to achieve with this exhibition.”

Alongside Thamesmead Codex, we have designed a series of free workshops and events to inspire and help us reconnect with the natural environment and each other.

All workshops are led by professional artists and experts in their fields.

About Bob and Roberta Smith

Bob and Roberta Smith (whose real name is Patrick Brill) brings together sign writing, activism and discarded materials. He likes to combine ’from the heart drawings and political speech.’ He says art is important for all of us, as ‘it’s about looking and listening to the world and asking is that right? Art makes the world a better place.’

Bob and Roberta Smith is the pseudonym of the artist Patrick Brill. Born in London, he studied at the University of Reading from (1981-1985) and Goldsmiths College (1991).

He trained as a sign painter in New York and uses text as an art form, creating colourful slogans on banners and placards that challenge elitism and advocate the importance of creativity in politics and education.

His best known works are Make Art Not War (1997) and Letter to Michael Gove (2011), a letter to the UK Secretary of State for Education reprimanding him for the “destruction of Britain’s ability to draw, design and sing”.

His curatorial projects include Art U Need: An Outdoor Revolution, which transformed public spaces in the Thames Gateway (2005-2006), and Peace Camp at The Brick Lane Gallery (2006), an exploration of artists’ perceptions of peace. A regular speaker at conferences and symposia, he initiated the Arts’ Party Conference 2013, a forum for artists and organisations to debate the role of art and design in schools.

As well as hosting a radio show called Make Your Own Damn Music on Resonance FM, Bob and Roberta Smith is a writer and musician, often performing with the Ken Brasley Playboy band. In 2009, he was appointed as a Tate Trustee and he is currently Associate Professor at the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University.

www.bobandrobertasmith.co.uk