In the recent months artFix has been developing an artistic showcase, presenting life in one of South East London’s burgeoning communities – Woolwich. We’ve been organising and administering weekly workshops with local art practitioners to work with members of the local community to showcase their artistic rendition of what it’s like to live and work in Woolwich. Mentors from various different spheres of the creative arts have been working with community groups and locals, collecting their stories and helping them shape their experiences into artwork.

The project has been funded by the Royal Borough of Greenwich Community Art Fund.

We’re honoured to be working with;

• Sandra Marques, a photographer and bookmaker, who’s been working with members from Gallion’s View Care Home and Woolwich residents.
• Robert Pierce, from Petite Pantos, a professional performer, writer and director who’s been working with members of the English Express Group, 7^th Plumstead Brownies and 7^th Plumstead Guides to create engaging performance pieces depicting our “story-tellers” lives in Woolwich.
• Tatiana Ellis – author, rap-artist, musical director. She is also the founder and co-ordinator of the R.O.M.E.L foundation – she has has been working with Rosebud Centre for girls, Black Majority Ethnicity Volunteers and RevolYOUtion to create original pieces reflecting our participants experiences in the community.
• Lucia Colella, a talented visual artist and regular artist at residence at artFix who has been working with Friends of Woolwich Common, Women in Sheds and Autistic Inclusive Meets to create visually evocative pieces describing and showcasing their experience.

These workshops have been taking place routinely during the past few months. The given mentors for each group have been working closely alongside our ‘story-tellers’ to prepare their given pieces for our ‘A Day in The Life’ artistic tour. This will be taking place this month on Saturday the 18^th of May. During the ‘A Day in the Life’ tour the story-tellers would present their creations in front of a live audience. Members of the public will be able to self-guide themselves around Woolwich to experience the area, learning about its most integral feature – its community. During this day artFix is also offering free workshops along with the given exhibitions and performances as part of the GET CREATIVE Festival. The day’s itinerary and further details can be found at https://www.artfix.org.uk/events/a-day-in-the-life/.

This day will be filmed and the footage will be used to create a more traditional documentary that will allow theevent to be preserved and celebrated in the future. The release of the documentary will create an opportunity to once again invite the mentors, the story-tellers, the volunteers as well as the general public to celebrate Woolwich and its people once again.

The project is rooted in artFix’s own inherent and core principles; it’s based on the strong belief in the essential role that the arts and culture play in the life of any successful community.Our aim is to help create a stronger community in Woolwich through sharing experiences and engagement with the arts. In this way the ‘A Day in the Life’ project will foster interactions among community members, artists, art organisations and existing community establishments. The shared experiences will empower the community, celebrating self-expression via the arts, encouraging a greater understanding between Woolwich locals, challenging miscommunication, assumptions and ignorance. The project not only benefits the wider community but also the story-tellers and contributors themselves. Participants involved in the project, through free workshops, will also develop new creative and artistic skills which would inevitably contribute to their personal development and wellbeing.

By sharing their everyday experiences with the wider community in an artistic way, participants, as well as the general public, will be able to connect to each other and to the wider Woolwich and Greenwich community, enabling a sense of belonging and strengthening a sense of community.

Join us on the 18^th for a day of workshops, performances, projections and installations created by the Woolwich community during the past few months!

In our community and at artFix, everyone can Live Everyday Life as a Work of Art.

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/GwmcrWGYjHs