Quick update: Found new studio / having a party at the old one.
Also hello to new subscribers from the Hell Bus!
MUSEUM CLOSING PARTY
Due to high demand I’m going to open the Museum of Neoliberalism for three final days this week before I’m finally kicked out of my studio, ending with a closing party on Saturday night.
Museum open this week Thurs-Sat, 26th-28th Sept. 11am-7pm
Party on Saturday from 8.30pm til late. All welcome. BYOB.
Also on Saturday from 7-8.30 is a small event where I’ll be interviewing Ralph Billington, a local 88 year-old self-described revolutionary socialist, and artist, and showing an exhibition of his artwork. The exhibition of his work should also be up on Friday.
Spaces for the Audience with Ralph are limited due to seating capacity. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-audience-with-ralph-museum-of-neoliberalism-closing-event-tickets-1025005919297
But it will also be recorded if you can’t make that. After the panel I’ll get Ralph home and then we’ll have a party. No ticket required to come to the party or to visit the museum 11am-7pm Thurs-Sat.
Ralph has been calling into the museum and the space’s former iteration as WAR Gallery since I moved here 9 years ago. A former teacher, he was kicked out of the Labour party for his opposition to the Suez invasion of 1956 and fought fascists at the Battle of Lewisham in 1977.
I’ve had many funny, fascinating conversations with Ralph in that time & we’ve become good friends. Due to his hearing he finds it hard to find people to converse with, so I thought I’d arrange a room full of them. As he says, “I’m deaf. I’ll do the talking, you do the listening”
As for what’s next, I’ve started moving into my new studio in Sydenham but the museum is still without a home and will need to go into storage. If you can help with storage (or a new home) for the exhibits please get in touch. But Gavin Grindon and myself do intend to reopen the museum at some point in the near future, hopefully an expanded one filled with even worse stuff.
THAT’S IT FOR NOW
Not much else to tell you about, since all I’ve been doing for two weeks has been moving endless boxes and bits of wood, which is exhausting, but it is tempered by the incredible relief that I actually found a studio to move it all to, and not a storage unit (or worse). I’m so happy with the new space, even though it can’t fit the museum in, I think I probably needed a break from running a museum every weekend. I’m thinking that this somewhere to regroup and for me, and museum co-curator Gavin Grindon, to plan for a museum that can run by itself without me having to be there most of the time.
Here you can see the first part of me settling into the new space. It has tons of daylight which is going to be a new experience for me, having been hermited away in the back of a windowless museum for the last five years.
I might try and document the process of setting up the new studio and stick it on my youtube, but then again I might forget to do that! Let’s find out…
NEW WORK COMING NEXT MONTH!
PATREON
Thanks to everyone who has backed my work on Patreon so far, it’s been a massive help.
If you’re able to support my work via Patreon I’ll send you a copy of this zine documenting all the work I made last year. This is the only way you can get a copy, it’s not for sale anywhere else.
I’ll be making a new zine for 2024 too.
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