Drawing a Line Between the Historic and Contemporary: The Big Draw at Borough Road Gallery and Beaconsfield

About

The event will begin at 4.30pm at Borough Road Gallery, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, SE1 0AA. The group will then take a short 15-20 minute walk down the road to Beaconsfield, 22 Newport Street, Vauxhall, London, SE11 6AY, where the event will continue, with the next workshop beginning at 6pm. There is also a bus route that goes directly between the two sites if required. The second workshop will be followed by drinks at Beaconsfield until 8.30pm. Both workshops are suitable for all abilities and materials are provided.

As part of The Big Draw 2015, Borough Road Gallery and Beaconsfield invite you to come and get your hands dirty in an event exploring historic and contemporary drawing.

The event will begin at Borough Road Gallery with a drawing workshop led by Borough Road Gallery Artist in Residence 2014/15, Susan Sluglett in response to the exhibition The Elemental Force of Charcoal: Drawing at the Borough. Sluglett was in residence from December 2014 to February 2015 making new work inspired by A David Bomberg Legacy – A Sarah Rose Collection, a collection of over 150 works by David Bomberg and the Borough Group. During her Artist Residency, Sluglett found herself drawing on a daily basis, returning to charcoal and ink; it is through these mediums that Sluglett first began to weave new stories and narratives around this collection of works.

The group will then move to Beaconsfield to continue working with artist Sophie Bouvier Ausländer in response to Harnessing the Wind. Harnessing the Wind arrests, for the space of an exhibition, the imaginations of four artists working in a range of mediums: painting, sculpture, video, social media, sound, public engagement – and memory. For this exhibition, artist Sophie Bouvier Ausländer has built a sculptural work on site that dwells on the destructive force of wind, imagining populations propelled by one wind of change into the eye of another storm.

The Big Draw is an international celebration of drawing that takes place across numerous countries annually in the month of October. The Big Draw programme is mainly free, with drawing activities for all ages and abilities that aim to connect people with museums, outdoor spaces, artists, and each other. The theme of the 2015 Big Draw is Every Drawing Tells A Story.

South London Art Map (SLAM) Last Fridays is a monthly late-night opening of galleries in south London, on the last Friday of the month.

Borough Road Gallery is a public gallery based at London South Bank University. Its exhibition and public programme uses A David Bomberg Legacy – The Sarah Rose Collection as a resource and inspiration. Exhibitions and residencies are animated by talks, newly commissioned texts, workshops and events, as well as new oral history recordings and a growing Digital Archive. For further details about The Elemental Force of Charcoal: Drawing at the Borough (23 October 2015 – 13 February 2016) and details of all accompanying events please visit www.boroughroadgallery.co.uk.

Beaconsfield remains a unique, non-profit, politically engaged, artist-led entity, placing equal emphasis on audiences and artists. Founded as an educational charity in 1994 with the desire to fill a niche between the institution, the commercial and the ‘alternative’, Beaconsfield’s reputation rests on the staging of an influential programme of commissions (beacons) in a range of art mediums (field). The organisation’s function as a

primary research vehicle is particularly notable for pioneering developments in time-based, political and sound art as well as curatorial practice. For more information please visit www.beaconsfield.ltd.uk/projects

Susan Sluglett is a contemporary painter, whose gestural and expressive work explores narratives and plays with traditions and rituals, touching upon human nature and histories. Sluglett was awarded the Jerwood Painting Fellowship in 2013 and is the winner of the 2016 New Greenham Open.

Sophie Bouvier Ausländer is represented internationally and is frequently commissioned for public art works in her home country Switzerland. Her most recent project Ways of Worldmaking is an open library commissioned in 2013 by the Etat de Vaud, Switzerland for a new college in Renens (VD) in collaboration with architects Dettling Péléraux and will be completed in 2016.