Meet the Artists: London Weekender 2023
Dunstan’s Den, Canopy by Hilton London City
UKNA’s 6th Weekender residency is organised in partnership with 4C Group and Canopy by Hilton London City Hotel. The Weekenders are micro-residencies: an opportunity to take some time, meet other artists, collaborate, and replenish thinking and possible directions for practice.
During this micro-residency artists will be spending time at the Canopy by Hilton London City Hotel, navigating and using the unique space both internally and externally whilst investigating the following themes:
Mapping, journeys, history, identity, landscapes, urban environments, change, transition, ephemerality, migration…
Over the weekend, artists will work with The Weekender curator Rosalind Davis and take part in a range of activities such as; exploring areas in East London, talks and workshops, collective facilitated discussions, collaborations and time to personally test thinking, develop ideas and works which are a direct response to the space and the locality of the hotel.
Meet The Selected Artists
Victoria Chen
Victoria Chen (she/they) is a theatre-maker who seeks intersectional, interdisciplinary and international collaborations. She won Best Emerging Artist at the Melbourne Fringe 2020, and as part of The Brickyard Hotel's residency in Beijing, developed a mini audio drama series, Jade: The Quarterlife Crisis (now on Spotify).
Social Media: @vhickles
Pepa Duarte
Pepa Duarte is a versatile Peruvian performer, writer and theatre maker based in London. Her work is constantly pushing boundaries to create unique, experiential and challenging pieces responding to the demands of social change. Previous projects include “Eating Myself”, “Senorita Rita’s drag show” and “Migran-te”. Pepa was also part of the UKNA Leicester City Takeover in 2022.
Griffi
The artist purposefully uses everyday objects in combination with vintage pieces and embellishes a variety of different surfaces. Griffi tries to illustrate the juxtaposition between the ideas of the old world and those of the new.
Shae Myles
Shae Myles likes kissing, noodles, birthdays, and asking uncomfortable questions. She also likes to explore secrets. Secret telling and secret keeping weave their way in and out of her practice; she’s drawn to the nurturing, collaborative process that is required to confess your own secrets, as well as draw them out of others.
Photograph by Mark Allan
Emily Peasgood
Emily Peasgood is an artist and composer working with sound and music to transform how we perceive our environment. Her work creates invitations to connect with people and places that are forgotten, overlooked, or surrounded by histories that can be remembered and celebrated through sound and music.
Jamal Sterrett
Jamal Sterrett is a self-taught performance artist with Asperger’s. Using improvised movement to access and respond to the felt, sensory and aesthetic state of an environment. Asperger's heightens his sensitivity to sensory and mental stimuli. Using it as a guide for movement alongside Bruk up, Flex and Ballet dance. Jamal first worked with UKNA in 2016 and represented the UK at the MEDITERRANEA 18, the Biennale of Young European and Mediterranean Artists in Albania in 2019.
Sam Tahmassebi
Sam Tahmassebi toys with duality and value through reflecting contemporary culture, social media and society. His diverse interests and understanding of subjects enable him to play with a range of techniques and visual languages throughout his practice. Sam was one of the shortlisted artists for the Robert Walters UK New Artist of the year Award 2021.