Cinema historian Nigel Smith will lead a walk exploring the lost cinemas of Barking before we visit the award winning architectural marvel A House For Artists to engage in a programme of films that show how film can support local communities with participation allowing for poignant feelings surrounding home and identity to be made manifest on screen. Filmmaker Charlotte Ginsborg worked in the Thames Estuary community of Ebbsfleet to create Our Future, Our Past, Whisper It To Me (2024) where younger and older local residents recite and perform spoken word texts that they wrote.
Other films will be informed by the experiences of first and second generation migrants moving to outer London areas such as Thamesmead and Barking to create community, and we'll also see how communities can be changed by climate catastrophe. The programme will include work by animators Mary Martins and Yasmine Djédjé-Fisher-Azoumé and artists Maria Anastassiou and Turab Shah & Arwa Aburawa.
Followed by the filmmakers in discussion, led by artist and researcher Maxwell Mutanda from the Bartlett School of Architecture.
The Community Cinema at A House for Artists hosts free monthly screenings of non-mainstream artist film and experimental work. They will be launching a series of free filmmaking workshops and a network of community programmers in 2025, for people who live in/have a connection to Barking and Dagenham. If you'd like to get in touch please send an email to: ahouseforartists@createlondon.org
Find out more about Nigel Smith and the Memory Palaces cinema history walking tours here.
