This Learning Lab — hosted as part of Platforma 6 Festival — will facilitate a conversation around the Postcards Across the River project led by Clapham Park Creative Co-op and produced by Counterpoints Arts. Date: Tuesday, 2 November 2021 Time: 11am to 12:30pm Cost: £ Free Who: For anyone interested in textile art, community-based practice, local culture/history and community resilience Spaces: Limited spaces, booking required. Location: Online on Zoom (recording will be available online at a later date) Hosted by: Counterpoints Arts and Platforma 6 Festival Postcards Across the River is a durational, cross-borough collaboration between two community groups on either side of the River Thames: Clapham Park Creative Co-op (Lambeth) and East London Textile Arts (Newham). Facilitated by the textile artist, Sonia Tuttiett, with input from story collector and Clapham Park resident, Thérèse Mullan, and commissioned and produced by Marcia Chandra, at Counterpoints Arts. The fabric postcards and accompanying stories of Postcards Across the River weave memories of home together with the interpersonal, cultural imaginaries of a post-Covid world. The embroideries tell stories of the past, the present and the future, merging complex temporalities through intricacy and detail. We invite you to join us in this conversation with participants as they reflect on the neighbourhood journeys that they have taken in Postcards Across the River – exchanging knowledge, skills and know-how. We are delighted to also be joined by Deirdre Figueiredo, Director of Craftspace, a leading craft development organisation creating opportunities to see, make and be curious about exceptional contemporary craft.

Questions to explore together 

• How might the everyday skills of embroidery be used to chronicle and document a place or a neighbourhood?
• How can this work create ‘living archives’ – especially as we move cautiously out from Covid 19?
• How might this slow, collaborative work help us re-learn the values of creative/social exchange, interconnection, interdependency, mutual aid and collective care?
• How might this form of everyday creativity be a critical catalyst for more sustainable cooperative public art commissions, re-connecting people within and between neighbourhoods and places?

Discussants

• Marcia Chandra, Counterpoints Arts, commissioner/producer
• Sonia Tuttiett, commissioned artist
• Thérèse Mullan, Clapham Park Creative Co-op Community Producer and commissioned writer
• Participants from both Clapham Park Creative Co-op and East London Textile Arts

With special guest, Deirdre Figueiredo, Director of Craftspace Moderated by Áine O’Brien, Counterpoints Arts

Organisers

Clapham Park Creative Co-op is a neighbourhood initiative exploring community change through creative conversation, and is produced by Counterpoints Arts. It works in partnership with and is supported by the Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association. Platforma arts and refugee network supports and develops arts and culture by, about and with refugees and migrants. Platforma is managed by Counterpoints Arts in partnership with organisations across the country. Every two years we run the Platforma Festival in a different part of England. Platforma 6 will take place in Yorkshire and online in October 2021 with a special focus on textiles.