PEX 100 Exhibition, Free

PEX 100: A Place to Belong

Join us at Copeland Gallery as we mark 100 years since the Peckham Experiment began.

In 1926, doctors Innes Hope Pearse and George Scott Williamson began a radical experiment in Peckham to study health itself. At its heart was a question that still feels urgent today: what does it mean to be truly healthy?

Their work grew from a small family club on Queen’s Road into the purpose-built Pioneer Centre on St Mary’s Road. Here, local families came for regular health overhauls, but also to swim, dance, eat, learn, play, make things and organise activities of their own. Pearse and Williamson wanted to understand the conditions in which health could develop through everyday life.

A Place to Belong brings together archive photographs, films, documents, objects and the voices of former members, alongside contemporary art and new creative work. The exhibition moves from the ideas behind the Experiment and the architecture created for it into the lived experience of the people who made the Centre their own.

One hundred years on, it returns Peckham’s questions about health, freedom, creativity, community and belonging to the present, and invites us to consider what those ideas might mean now.

Exhibition design and curation by the Pex creative team:

Nina Farrell, Asa Medhurst, Dan Liston & Stephen Hardingham

Featured Artists:

Luke Frost (Spectral Nation)
Lukas Novotny
Maxim Medhurst
Dr Jini Rawlings
Gavin Renz
Ilona Sagar
Hardingham Shaw
Sean Thornhill
Therese Vandling (Spectral Nation)
Richard Waterhouse
William Waterhouse
Priscilla Watkins
Tisna Westerhof

The exhibition forms part of The Peckham Experiment at 100, our centenary programme of films, archive work, tours, creative projects and public conversations.

Exhibition Opening Hours

• Thurs 19th Nov    - 12pm - 5pm
• Fri 20th Nov         - Closed for Day of Dialogue
• Fri 20th Nov         - Private View from 6.30pm - 10pm
• Sat 21st Nov         - 12pm - 8pm
• Sun 22nd Nov     - 12pm - 5pm

The Peckham Experiment CIC is a resident-led organisation based at the Pioneer Building. We preserve, share and explore the Peckham Experiment through storytelling, events and creative collaborations. We invite people to discover this remarkable history and use it as a starting point for new conversations about health, community, creativity and place.