Unity Arts and Hoxton Hall will be delivering FREE half term workshops for 7-10s and 11-19s at Hoxton Hall during the May Half Term.
The workshops called HACKNEY DISSENT will run
Tuesday 28 – Friday 31 May from 1030 – 330
and include sessions in drama, movement, arts and performance poetry. We will finish the week with a performance for an invited audience.
All who come to the workshops will also be taken on a trip to Dr Johnson’s House in Fleet Street and all work made during the week will be included in a book in both printed and online versions and everyone will receive a copy.
If you would like to register for a FREE place please complete this form
The 27 April saw a small gathering on the site of the proposed Wollstonecraft statue in Newington Green. The weather was awful but we managed to sing Happy Birthday, shoot a short film and begin the work on the STEWY installation for next year.
Our large outside event on 28 April saw over 130 people gathered in very windy and cold weather to have a birthday picnic on Newington Green with a small installation
A specialist talk from Professor Anna Birch
Singers from St Mary’s Community
Extracts from Wollstonecraft’s short stories for Children by one of the Hackney Pirates Young Writers group
Songs of Rebellion from Young Dissenters Choir
We all lit candles and sang Happy Birthday!
And we ALL ate CAKE!
It nearly rained on us but everyone was very cheerful, the Lizzy’s Café, Newington Green Action Group, Fragments & Monuments and Dr Jenny Littlewood were so supportive and we had a lot of additional sign up for the project .
We hope everyone learnt something about the wonderful woman Mary Wollstonecraft and we look forward to all the research, trips and workshops coming up.
TWO YEAR COMMUNITY RESEARCH PROJECT RECEIVES HLF SUPPORT!
Unity Arts have successfully bid for a National Lottery grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a two year project BLUE CIRCLE OF DISSENT. Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players.
The project will research the events, works and personalities that surrounded the lives and work of Mary Wollstonecraft and Blue Stockings Society leader, Elizabeth Montagu.
Elizabeth Montagu
Throughout the coming months Unity Arts will be platforming research, talks, training and events. Research visits will include, the National Portrait Gallery, Kenwood House and Strawberry Hill.
Strawberry Hill House
This project will create a series of free events. Events on 27 and 28 April 2019 (including an Outside Event on Newington Green) will be held to commemorate the birthday of radical Mary Wollstonecraft.
Events throughout the project will include an evening of literary presentations at Dr. Johnson’s House off Fleet Street. A community made event with specialist speaker in St Pancras.. An all-day installation at the Foundling Museum and a debate and installation at the Dissenters’ Gallery.
On 12 February as part of the WOEFUL PUPPET presentation at Tower of London Dr Zoe Hudson gave a talk (to a very mixed crowd) about what life in prison would have been like for Lady Jane Grey.
“I used archival evidence of Stonley and other prisoners to explore how Jane might have experienced those months in the Tower of London”.
She writes here of delivering a talk to a mixed community group and how she “was excited to have a chance support the work of Unity Arts” and “a group of young kids gathering at the front; I hadn’t anticipated having so many young people in the audience”.
This talk was well received. And Unity Arts continue to work as a bridge between academia and the community.
We very much look forward to working with Zoe Hudson in the future.
On 12 February 2018, the anniversary of the death of Lady Jane Grey, Unity Arts delivered a community created installation in the New Armouries at the Tower Of London.
Image Michael Cheetham Costume Isabel Walters Model Nellie Noodle
This event was a culmination of all the research and responses of the various Unity Arts teams to the life and early demise of the Nine Day Queen.
Live Exhibitor Thom Jackson
The exhibition looked absolutely stunning and the work on display and in performance was of a high standard and created with care.
There was artwork, research, individual projects, costume, films, and Live Events from Dr Zoe Hudson, Dramatisation of Primary Sources including letter and poem extracts in Lady Jane Grey’s own words and programme from the Hackney based community choir, Silver Songbirds.
Dr Zoe Hudson
Also the Unity Arts Heritage Team’s booklets, essays and papers were available for distribution and over 400 copies left the room that day.
The room was absolutely packed with a completely mixed audience of children, teenagers, academics, educators, professional exhibitors, Tudor aficionados together with performers and researchers from every part of Hackney’s rich and diverse community.
Silver Songbirds Hackney Community Choir
There was also an opportunity for attendees to visit the rest of the Tower Of London and specifically Beauchamp Tower (site of Dudley’s graffito said to be engraved when he was prisoner there) and Tower Green where Jane Grey was executed.
Feedback is still coming in but EVERYONE has said what a fantastic day they had!
We have been invited to exhibit our young team’s work at Sutton House 6-8 September. Some examples here:
As part of this installation a Live Event DECONSTRUCT has been created. A Tudor Fashion show with a modern twist. Created by a small team of young women and designed by Nellie Noodle.
We held the launch of the Heritage Lottery funded WOEFUL PUPPET at St Mary’s Community Rooms in Hackney on 10 August. This project about the events that led to the execution of Lady Jane Grey attracted a lot of interest.
We were so pleased with the wonderfully diverse turnout (especially as its the holidays) and that so many people signed up for trips and training to gain the skills to install heritage exhibitions at St Katherine Kree, Sutton House and the Tower of London.
We will also be producing a documentary, sub-titled interviews with experts, colour booklet and online educational materials.
It was also a first outing as presenter for our volunteer Olivia who is hoping to learn heritage skills such as research and archive training and also installation skills such as how to be a Live Exhibit.
As previously we will be holding other outreach events throughout the project.
If you were unable to attend and want more information email us at unityarts@hotmail.co.uk or contact us below.
