Drawing Things Together

Throughout Autumn and Winter, Kneed will be working with Drawing Room, Big Local Works, The Blue Market, Lynton Road Allotments, the local orchard and community groups in Bermondsey, to make and share a condiment together.

This condiment – might be a sauce, a vinegar, a chutney, a jam or something else – is a way to share stories and have conversations around what grows in the area, what is surplus, local economies, histories and futures, trade and processes of making and working together. Drawing on Bermondsey’s local industrial history; a place of making – from leather to jam, breweries to biscuit factories, our community condiment continues that tradition, asking: What brings us together? How do we sustain each other? How can communities be sustained despite rapid redevelopment and gentrification?  Through market stalls, a community press sharing local news and stories, food growing, harvesting and cooking – the Bermondsey based condiment will be circulated across the area – join us as we develop a taste, texture and smell which speaks to this area.

Come and get involved through:

• Hands-on sensory workshops at market stalls and community spaces

• Harvesting and cooking sessions

• Sharing stories and local knowledge, history walks and mapping activities

• Creating a community publication documenting our process, using riso printing.

No experience necessary – just bring your curiosity and appetite. Together, we’ll develop a taste, texture, and smell that speaks to who we are and where we live.

Kneed is a collaborative practice formed by artists Ishwari Bhalerao and Leonie Rousham. We explore themes of structural violence, hostile bureaucracy, collective histories, informal economies of care and our relationships with the more than human within British landscapes and institutions. Through film, performance, workshops, writing, collage, conversations, walking and chance encounters, we engage with care workers, educators, artists, migrants and more –  communities we are also part of. We seek to probe at power dynamics held in language, image production, observation and documentation, and play with rehearsing new social formations.

Having worked collaboratively for over five years, we believe in the transformational potential of collective artmaking. Our focus is on amplifying and nurturing systems of care and support, particularly in contexts where external pressures strain available resources. Constantly adapting our processes within changing contexts and our collaborators, we create spaces for identifying and addressing shared needs.