Portfolio

Achievements

PLACEMAKING in PUBLIC REALM: Historic England Blue Plaque for Irene Barclay 1st woman surveyor 2024

Preserving local heritage: Fundraised £13K to buy back ‘Stolen art from the USA’ artworks & delivered repair /conservation of Gilbert Bayes Statue for Origin Housing 2025 

A new heritage trail for Somers Town Art in everyday life

Poetry Installation for Chalton Street with Artist Robert Montgomery Camden BID

COMMUNITY: Delivered over 300 successful events co-curated with communities over 9 yrs, Bangladeshi group of 2 years resulting in Lotus Stories book + Pearly Sari exhibition 

History Club 2016 Opened Museum 2022; Nominated as Radical Changemaker Museum Association

EDUCATION: Trained 30 youth work experience; work with many partners

LOCAL VOICE: NLA Housing Panel; Published books with over 100 academic & local contributors; 5 films; many articles covering our role

2024 Centenary celebrations with Panel of National figures including John Boughton on housing today: Pearly King 2025

HISTORY

  • 2024
  • CHRISTMAS PARTY, launching our new book Lotus Stories, compiled by our Bangladeshi women’s ‘Lotus Group’, with Mayor of Camden Samata Khatoon.
  • 2024 BLOOMSBURY FESTIVAL and OPEN HOUSE FESTIVAL WALKS – Women’s Ways and Missions by Professor Esther Leslie; Art in Everyday Life by Steve McCarthy; Ossulston Estate by Danny Bee; and ‘This Uncanny Zone’: Gothic Psychogeography
  • 2024 September 14th SOMERS TOWN: THE HOUSING STORY celebrated of St Pancras Housing in its centenary year as part of OPEN HOUSE FESTIVAL. A performance walk told the story of the St. Pancras House Improvement Society, followed by a workshop at St Mary’s Church exploring the scope of a possible Conservation Area based on the heritage of Somers Town’s social housing.
  • ‘LOTUS GROUP’ met regularly and held a Fireside Stories event at the Story Garden in November to compile Sylheti folk songs and stories for a new book, Lotus Stories. This will help disseminate hidden histories, breaking language and cultural barriers to connect the younger generations to their female elders and highlight the value of the women’s  contribution and life stories.
  • Monthly ‘NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM’ LATES with films and Q&As exploring local history and museum themes, including ‘The White Flats’ about social housing architect Peter Tabori, Jane Gull’s HS2 films, and Anarchist Traces talk by Professor Esther Leslie.
  • 20th JULY FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE DISCOVERY DAY screen-printing and outreach.
  • 17th July FIELD KITCHEN ALBUM LAUNCH based on history and sounds of Camden
  • HOUSING IS NOT ENOUGH EXHIBITION produced for the launch of Friends of St Mary’s, 6th July.
  • SATURDAY ART CLUB
  • 20th June OPENING OF SMOOTHING THE CITY EXHIBITION of students’ work from Middlesex University, produced in collaboration with People’s Museum.
  • MURAL PAINTING Outside Story Garden Ossulston St NW1 1DF on Saturdays in June A London Festival of Architecture event
  • 2024 June 15th – 4 WALKS for London Festival of Architecture on HOUSING IS NOT ENOUGH/ NOT ENOUGH HOUSING – Walks talks draws together thinkers on St Pancras Housing as a radical act, and in the context of wider contemporary social housing issues, and Somers Town as a changing area, at risk urban working class community facing major development. 
  • June 7th PANEL DISCUSSION: HOUSING IS NOT ENOUGH/ NOT ENOUGH HOUSING. With panelists John Boughton (Municipal Dreams), Elizabeth Darling of SahGB, writer Ellen Peirson, and Jo McCafferty of Levitt Bernstein. A London Festival of Architecture event
  • 2023-2024 ’ART IN EVERYDAY LIFE‘ Heritage Trail / folk stories gathering architects editcollective designing physical artworks on Phoenix Road with virtual AR stories content, with CSM and stories to raise awareness of the loss of this important working class heritage, and Untold Stories is co-created with people who live here today.
  • 2024 May Irene Barclay UK’s 1st female surveyor Blue Plaque launch event.
  • 2024 RUHUMAN? Disabled Activist Keith Armstrong’s poetic typewriter art Exhibition and Workshops.
  • 2023
  • 2023 Xmas Party with Women’s Group of Bangladeshi Heritage food and music takeover!
  • Summer 2023 Lotus group forms: Sharing Stories Women’s Group of Bangladeshi Heritage; work on book on Bangladeshi Folk tales / stories including new voices in the place we live.
  • 2023 Poetry Workshop lighting installation Chalton Street a collaboration with Robert Mongtomery and Camden Unlimited (Euston BID funded)
  • 2023 GLA Courtyard Stories to work with architecture collective editcollective on community-led heritage trail ‘Hanging the stories’ as part of with AR virtual and physical elements 
  • Radical theatre: Unity Theatre Getogether of children of actors/ Event in Musuem
  • 2023 “Badgeland” Book Launch by Steve Rayson in conversation with facilitated by Prof ESther Leslie on 1980s socialist youth culture
  • 2023 ‘Echoes of Place’ Starcross Heritage trail Commissioned by Camden Council for to produce interactive response to the site including QR codes and audio content and dibond boards heritage trail
  • 2022 Climate action to salvage Gothic Victorian Iron gates form old Goods Yard; now saved to be reused in a development of flats instead of new gates
  • 2022 Mural project for London Festival of Architecture with four artists over 5 weekends with : Community co-design workshops with our youth Collective on Somers Town themes: Radical Reformer Un-common people histories: as a result this case study led to Diana Foster being  in Radical Changemaker finalist in Museum Change lives Museum Association 2022 
  • 2022 London Festival of Architecture Somers Town programme Commissioned by Camden Council:  Final weekend: Decolonising Dinner +  Auction “Selling off Somers Town” + Radical Screen printing throughout Festival 
  • 2022 Lost/Found Somers Town Exhibition of object making up museum based on found objects Radicals Reformers and Un-common People
  • 2019 -21 Co-creation of Museum  is a community produced project by a network of artists/ writers and local contributors over 6 years of work co -design with Pop Up Milk Float estate outreach Opened museum on Phoenix Road May 2022
  • 2021 Mural project in Lockdown:  19 Companions by Esther Leslie Artwork Diana Foster
  • 2020 Mural project in Lockdown Outdoor Festivals 20 posters
  • 2020 Mural project in Lockdown Sprit! 21 Posters MADE OF SOMERS TOWN (aka we are not Kings Cross)
  • July 2019 Pop up museum at Somers Town Festival of Cultures in British Library Poetry Circle
  • 2020 -21 Woven Together project with Bengali artist Joy in Weaving collboration of weaving local names with community outreach
  • 2020 Schools history project art on display online in lockdown hoardings 
  • 2020 Radicial Screenprinting outdoors in lockdown on estates
  • 2016 Somers Town Futures With Architects for social housing;  Fimmaker Sue Crockford, Tom Young; Fran Heron Slaney Devlin and locals talking about the change in Somers Town
  • 2018 Art in Everyday Life workshops and guided walk on Working class heritage Gilbert Bayes lost  /stolen ceramic Art in Everyday life. Werking with ceramic artist making clay objects
  • 2013 – 2019 Festivals of Cultures – Photo completion Then and now with with START Somers Town Arts and 
  • 2014-6 Spirit! Ethnographic documentary Film based on oral histories work of 60 oral histories with UCL ethnographic filmmakers
  • 2018 Then and Now people’s Photo competetion
  • 2013 Somers Town Wishes participatory film project and hoarding display on Francis Crick Institute Building site and online website

Documentation of some of above projects. Further materials available on request.