You Are Here - Walking & Mapping Deptford (Part of 'Rhizomizing en route' exhibition)

As a part of their 'You are here' Collaborative Map Project, Studio Biped will be leading a Walking Workshop. 

During the Walking & Mapping Workshop, we will explore the neighbourhood, open our senses, find inspiration, and gather materials that will then used to create maps under different themes. The outcome of the workshop will be collated into a zine in collaboration with bookbinder Sim Orme! There's a chance to contribute to the communal archive of Deptford!

About Studio Biped
“We are an art collective from Hong Kong newly and partly relocated to the UK. Our members have always found creativity through continuous questioning in a playful manner.
So now, inspired by our first person experience of immigration, we are holding in hand a magnifying glass, in examining the unique yet diverse process of disorientation and reorientation experienced by self and fellow immigrants alike. It is our belief that to understand one’s relationships with our surroundings — however strange or unfamiliar — is to discover hidden insights of one’s root and self-identity.”

For this project, they have created an interactive map installation at Deptford Lounge library, where visitors are free to share their lived experience in Deptford and beyond.

About Sim Orme
“I am a British bookbinder. My frequent relocations since childhood have led to contemplations about home and belonging. After years of movement, I have realised London is where I feel truly at home and have recently moved back.
The inherent conflict between bookbinding - a practice demanding ample space - and my nomadic lifestyle has spurred a deep reflection on my relationship with this art form. I am keen to experiment how this traditional craft can transform in the contemporary context and respond to pressing issues of our time.”

About 'Rhizomizing en route' exhibition
📍 the Library at Deptford Lounge (9 Giffin St, SE8 4RJ)
🗓️ 15 June (from 2pm) - 13 July 2024
Opening event: Saturday 15 June 2024, 2-5pm

Opening time: Monday-Friday | 9am – 7pm
Saturday | 9am – 5pm

Taking place at Deptford Lounge, ‘Rhizomizing en route’ is an exhibition about the ambivalent relationships between localities and the sense of belonging and community.

"Rhizomize" describes how roots are grown in a radial, unexpectable manner.

In this era of constant movement and displacement, we are urged to reconsider whether the prevailing discourses surrounding identities of diaspora, migrants, and so on - often steered by stereotypical associations - suffice to encompass the complexity of our visceral experiences.

This project seeks to create a platform for dialogues and community, exploring how we have been striving to belong, connect, lay down roots in a place, and locate our community and position ourselves within it, all while being perpetually on the move.

Artists with varied experiences of displacements/movements come together to examine the communities they are part of, have left behind, or have barely known. Their intimate explorations, embodied in their works, shed light on the inherent ambivalence, or perhaps the impossibility, of rhizomizing en route.

Participating artists: Henri Affandi, Kemi Ajose, Christie Lau, Sim Orme, Niamh Schmidtke, Studio Biped, Maggie Williams
Curated by Stephanie Chung

Follow @rhizomize.enroute on Instagram for the most updated information.✨

For any inquiries, please email rhizomize.enroute.2024@gmail.com.