Kensington + Chelsea Art Week

About

Eleven days of public art festivities have been developed with community consultation, with a diverse programme of events, talks, highlights, installations and exhibits taking place throughout the Royal Borough.

KCAW Founder and Director Vestalia Chilton comments, “Despite enormous uncertainties we have maintained a strong team and more than doubled our festival activity for 2020. Our single ambition during these difficult times was to support our local cultural organisations and to endorse the resilience and hard work of our community.” 

The Royal Borough has a long history of artistic collaboration, creative discourse and urban counterculture. All activity during the week goes toward supporting the participating venues, galleries and artists. The week will coincide with National Poetry Day and London’s annual art season and remains committed to supporting art and culture across many disciplines. Cadogan are the principal sponsors of the Kensington + Chelsea Art Week and the Public Art Trail also supported by RBKC across the rest of the Borough. 

This year the festival launched an open call to artists, performers, creative organisations and curators to submit pre-existing artworks and ideas for projects to take place in a variety of public spaces during KCAW20, in order to give greater visibility to locally based creative talent. 

The shortlisted proposals were selected by an Art Committee of names from across the visual arts, culture, literature and media worlds including: RBKC Mayor Cllr Will Pascal, artist Conrad Shawcross, Diane Morgan from Westway Arts, Jo Stella-Sawicka, former Director of FRIEZE Sculpture Park and local resident, art consultant Kristie Kang, The Design Museum’s Josephine Chanter, photographer and local resident Richard Young and Cadogan’s Sophia Routledge.

KCAW will present over a hundred participants, including both emerging and world-class institutions and cultural practitioners, to celebrate the artistic richness of the Borough. This year’s dynamic calendar of events will be the most extensive edition of KCAW to date. The programme includes murals and public artworks acknowledging the COVID-19 pandemic and paying tribute to the NHS. 

Participants include the Design Museum, The Great Exhibition Road Festival (GERF) collaboration with arts and science, The Chelsea Theatre, Kensington Town Hall, Royal Society of Sculptors, The Coronet Theatre, Pavilion Hive in Notting Hill, the Chelsea Arts Club, White City Place, and the Goldfinger Factory, with many more to be announced. 

KCAW brings fresh dynamism to the area through its vibrant public art trails that also include self-guided tours designed to reveal hidden gems within food, music theatre and history, as well as exhibitions by hundreds of local galleries, connecting eight culture zones in the Borough. It will be an opportunity to enjoy the area in greater depth and allow the public to discover and be guided through the extraordinary cultural cross-section of the historic area. The festival also coincides with National Poetry Day and there will be a chance to enjoy performances and readings as part of the programming. 

With the cancellation of this year’s Frieze Art Fair, KCAW will offer the capital a rich and diverse programme of cultural highlights for October. There has never been a more crucial time to support the vibrant art and culture of the capital and the festival has put social distancing measures in place to ensure public health and welfare and comply with government guidelines. These optimum safety measures will ensure a welcome opportunity for the public to support London’s artistic ventures.

‘A stunning programme of events and experiences that will inspire residents and visitors alike’. – KCW Today. 

Among the highlights of KCAW include: an open call KCAW Public Art Trail installed in Sloane Square, Duke of York Square, Kings Road, Chelsea Theatre, Holland Park, Freston Road, Portobello, High Street Kensington and White City with highlights including installations in Sloane Square and Duke of York Square by artists Barnaby Barford, Toy Studio and Liz West. Sculptor Alex Chinneck will create a new installation called Alphabetti Spaghetti which will be located in Lockton Road/Bramley Road railway arches in W11. 

A new addition this year is Art in Windows featuring local artists and creative studios who will transform store windows along the iconic King's Road and Kensington High Street, through a series of exhibitions and imaginative interventions. As the high street responds to the pandemic, these empty retail spaces will be brought to life with works by local artists to engage passers-by in a celebration of culture and creativity. The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea has commissioned eight retail art installations which will be installed in vacant retail premises along Kensington High Street, which will stay in-situ until Christmas with participating artists including Shuster & Moseley, Dotmaster, Lindsay Mendick and Catriona Robertson. 

The Love Kensington + Chelsea Hoardings project will feature work by artists celebrating the different histories of the borough by painting murals on construction boards in unusual locations. The murals are selected by public and resident vote. 

KCAW are working with CW+, the official charity of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, on a collaboration with British-Nigerian artist Yinka llori. 

Yinka Ilori comments, “Better days are coming I promise is a message that I have been singing to myself and loved ones during the pandemic. Whenever we are presented with the news on the number of lives that have been lost and you to get to witness the family’s pain and emotion speaking about their loss, it’s extremely painful to watch. Also to see how hard the NHS staff are working to save peoples’ lives, and I can’t imagine what it feels like for them. They must be also struggling to feel like better days are coming, but sometimes we all need a reminder that they are. I pray that when people walk past or look at my message on streets of London it uplifts their soul and spirit because we are in this together. What I do know is better days are coming and I promise because nothing lasts forever.”

CW+ will also unveil a COVID-19 legacy landmark installation project at West Middlesex University Hospital marking the crisis and its effects on everyday life. Entitled #becauseyou, the project is to be designed by the local community in remembrance of the global pandemic. The hospital is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. 

A packed workshops and events programme will be announced ahead of the festival with highlights including a very special free Fashion Illustration Workshop for adults at The Fashion School in Chelsea. 

Another new feature to KCAW20 is the new digital Culture Map, launching 1 October, which will encompass all cultural activity in the Royal Borough as a living library and database. The Culture Map connects eight culture zones and visitors are invited to explore the area using the culture map both printed and online. 

The popular Lates Gallery Trail will also return to the festival offering visitors a chance to visit some of the Borough’s best loved local galleries. 

KCAW is also collaborating with Imperial College and The Great Exhibition Road Festival by creating seven digital fantasies with artists and scientists of Albertopolis, launched in conjunction with World Mental Health Day on 10 October. 

Also available online is Open Doors 360, an ongoing series of short immersive 360-degree films of 5-8-minute interviews with ten contemporary artists taking part in KCAW and living or working West London. They offer insight into the artists’ practices during lockdown and are shot in their studios or in a key location related to this time. Artists include Danny Lane, Mark Elie, Joe Rush, Piers Butler, Kate Daudy, I Sis, Lucille Dweck, Nickolas Grace, Alison Jackson and Terence Stamp. The films are produced by Maya Sanbar of Chasing the Light studio, Damian Rayne of Muse Films and The Galleries Association and is supported by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council Arts Grants scheme. These immersive videos are best enjoyed using the YouTube app from a VR headset, phone or tablet. 2D versions are published alongside the 360 videos. 

This year KCAW20 has also introduced the Go Jauntly Walks, curated themed tours around the borough available via the app Go Jauntly. The walks have been curated by local residents, KCAW Advisory Board members and local artists such as Alison Jackson to offer insight and uncover hidden histories of the local area. The Go Jauntly app, as well as allowing these walks to be enjoyed remotely, features the Public Art Trail and ‘Nature Notes’ - a digital diary encouraging users to stop and enjoy nature on a daily basis as a mean of promoting mental health and wellbeing.