Join Staffordshire St and YAK! for an open and communal reading group exploring radical histories through conversation and text. Journeying into worlds of protest, art, and writing, we take inspiration from poetry, prose, letters, journals, speeches, and plays to better understand those that came before us and the world we live in today.


The banners are raised, the canopy is holding, come shelter under our framework for collective practice. Please join us for READING/TALKING of Are the Stones Standing Still. Meet artist-led practitioners from across the UK to find out about what they do and where they want to be in 5 years time. We will be reading selected texts to reflect on the material histories of protest banners, quilts, and flags and their radical uses on picket lines.
YAK! welcomes everyone.

Info:

Saturday 31st August
15.00 - 17.00

Tickets:

Free or PWYC.

If you are financially able, please consider paying more, to keep Staffordshire St events accessible to all.

Alexander Stubbs | @alexanderstubss :

Alexander Stubbs is a writer, curator, educator, and collaborator. Currently, he works as the Programme Assistant at Absolutely Cultured, supporting the research, planning, and delivery of the visual arts programme at Humber Street Gallery and the organisation’s community engagement programme. He has supported exhibitions by Bruce Asbestos, Russell Boyce and George Norris, and Juneau Projects.

As an educator, he runs workshops which have discussion and alternative methods of learning at their heart. Working with artist-led organisations to deliver workshops to a wide range of groups. Since April 2022, he has co-run a discussion workshop series, Monday Musings, with artist Sarah Pennington, responding to and reflecting on the programme at Hull Artist Research Initiative.

About the exhibition:

Are the Stones Standing Still is a symposium, a gathering of collectives from around the UK to come together and protest.

Curator Dinosaur Kilby has invited five collaborative artist groups to come together: Prayer Room in Birmingham, Test Space from Bristol, PINK in Stockport, Studio Cybi from North Wales and The Field in Derbyshire to participate. Each collective is asked to produce a banner; a statement of intent about who they are, what they are doing and where they want to be in five years. During the four day event the banners will be raised as a makeshift tent for collective practice to shelter under. The symposium will seek to examine questions such as: what does rurality mean? How do artist-led ecologies talk to each other? What’s important for artists now?

The four day exhibition cum weekender will activate the project space with screenings, performances and conversation below, between and around the waving flags. Are the Stones Standing Still is a follow up to If It Thunders on All Fool's Day, which took place at Eastside Projects in 2023.

Accessibility: There is step-free access to the gallery via the door to the left hand side of the main entrance. There is a wheelchair accessible toilet. The event will be taking place in the exhibition space, which is a large open room with bright lighting and some seating available.

Staffordshire St is an independent project space in Peckham, South East London. The venue facilitates arts and cultural events and provides affordable studios for artists, makers and designers. ​

Staffordshire St is not-for-profit and all income is invested into developing our public programme which launched the summer of 2022. The venue was established as an art gallery in 2017, before then it was vacant for many years after a community centre closed. Originally it was built as a Methodist Hall. We intend to support a range of cultural events for the local community.

Staffordshire St will build on the established record of these histories, opening up again to the neighbourhood and developing a welcoming interdisciplinary arts space. More information on upcoming events at : info@staffordshirest.com or @staffordshirest

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