London’s largest contemporary art festival, Art Night, announces first details of the Curated Programme – a selection of internationally acclaimed artists presenting 12 commissions in locations around Walthamstow and King’s Cross.
Curated by Helen Nisbet – her first edition as Art Night’s Artistic Director – the programme will take place on the night of 22 June 2019, beginning at 5.00pm in King’s Cross and 7.00pm in Walthamstow, and running throughout the night. Art Night is generously supported by international auction house Phillips for the fourth year running, and this year takes place as part of the official programme for the first ever Mayor’s London Borough of Culture in Waltham Forest.
In 1993 the London pop group East 17 released their single It’s Alright, heralding a new era for boy bands and making E17 the most exciting postcode in popular culture. In 2019 this song provides the inspiration for the fourth Art Night festival in Walthamstow and King’s Cross.
The 12 Art Night curated projects have been conceived in response to the physical context of these locations and the communities who use them.
The festival will explore the distinct identity, culture and architecture of Waltham Forest, highlighting the area’s expansive market culture through a series of new commissions along and around Walthamstow High Street – Europe’s longest outdoor market – and other local landmarks. Additional activations will take place in King’s Cross – London’s dynamic transport and culture hub, only 14 minutes on the tube from Walthamstow – encouraging audiences to enter the Art Night trail via the 24-hour Night Tube on the Victoria Line.
Each artist has been invited to consider ideas around Hope, Love and The Future and how communities might care for and support one other amidst a time of political and cultural uncertainty.
Art Night 2019 will occupy familiar places where people are brought together in everyday life – the market, cinema, pub, community centre, library, shopping mall, museum, car park, school, places of worship and the street. Over a dozen iconic and unique public sites.
1930s former cinema Mirth Marvel & Maud, Art Night 2019 will continue to unlock London’s extraordinary public and private spaces to transform them for one night only.
The Curated Programme will comprise of new commissions by internationally renowned artists including Barbara Kruger, who will be presenting her first large-scale outdoor commission in 15 years in the UK, in Walthamstow’s Town Square – questioning consumerism, individual autonomy, desire and power. Christine Sun Kim will transform Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross with a three-part commission, collaborating with students at the local Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children to create two works – an experimental new multi-channel video installation and a text-based ‘declaration’ in Cubitt Square, as well as a durational sound piece at the new arts-focused COS space in Coal Drops Yard, exploring how experiences of deafness shape understandings of language and culture. Artist duo Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings will present a ‘musical spectacle’ travelling through Walthamstow Market, which brings together musical genres – including disco, House, High NRG and Pop – into a single dramatic vision performed and centred around a Pride float.
Running alongside Art Night’s Curated Programme will be special projects and events selected as part of Art Night Open, directed by Zarina Rossheart, which offers cultural organisations, as well as independent artists and curators, the opportunity to take part in the festival and respond to the 2019 themes and cultural trail. Details of these projects will be announced in the coming months.
