Artist Talk: Rooms of Neighbours With Olukemi Lijadu and Pamela Dayes

Wed 24 JUN, 6:30-8PM

Join us to discuss Rooms of Neighbours, an evolving exhibition curated by Ben Broome, unfolding across twelve households on Clifton Crescent, Peckham. Installed within private homes and shared spaces, the project pairs each household with an artist.

This talk will bring together artist Olukemi Lijadu and resident Pamela Dayes. For Rooms of Neighbours, Lijadu puts Pamela’s photo albums in conversation with photos of her late maternal grandmother – Beryl Ediale – both Jamaican women who migrated to the UK before spending time in West Africa. By extracting and enlarging small markers of overlapping histories and experiences between Dayes and Ediale, the works become a collaborative document exploring the self fashioning of Caribbean women at that time.

Olukemi delved into Pamela’s family photos and those of her own grandmother, setting them against each other in framed works that hang in Pamela’s home on Clifton Crescent. Their silver bangles, kitten heels and red nails act as markers that root them in connected cultures, eras and geographies.

ABOUT ROOMS OF NEIGHBOURS

Taking inspiration from Jan Hoet’s landmark exhibition Chambres d’amis (Ghent, 1986), Rooms of Neighbours reimagines the domestic exhibition as a living, social process. Rather than centering existing art-world networks, this project takes place within the homes of residents who, by and large, do not regularly visit arts spaces, and whose lives span multiple generations, diasporas and social backgrounds.

Each participating household is matched with an artist whose practice reflects a sensitivity to domestic, social and relational environments. Artists responded to the specific dynamics of each home, creating works that sit within lived spaces far removed from a traditional white-cube context. Beyond its curatorial inquiry, Rooms of Neighbours has had a tangible social impact: neighbours who had lived on the same street for decades met for the first time through taking part.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Liz Johnson Artur, Isabella Costabile, Racheal Crowther, Liam Gillick, Ben Kinmont, Raheel Khan, Ghislaine Leung, Olukemi Lijadu, Jasper Marsalis, Marietta Mavrokordatou, Nina Porter, Josiane M. H. Pozi, Jessi Reaves, Rirkrit Tiravanija

ACCESS

• Wheelchair Access and Disabled Toilets are available at this site.
• This event is seated.
• Please contact mail@southlondongallery.org with any further access requirements.