From Social to Sociable

From Social to Sociable is a book about a project to re-open the former Moorings Social Club in Thamesmead as the Moorings Sociable Club. It is by artist Verity-Jane Keefe in conversation with client and commissioner, Kate Batchelor.

This is a book that offers a slice of a place in time, a five-and-half or six-year window into a place, its residents, and a building. It centres around care and relationships. What it is to breathe new life into a building that has existing histories? What are the logistics of bringing a speculative funding bid to life? What is it to be an artist working on a design team? What is the role and potential of the artist working within regeneration? How can we work with communities to make things public?

At its heart this is a book that documents and demystifies process – not as a traditional case study of a project, but an honest open conversation between the client and commissioner, Kate Batchelor and Lead Artist on the Design Team, Verity-Jane Keefe. It aims to share some of the mechanics, politics and realities of what it takes to get things done, the importance of respecting both the building and community, and how this is merely the next chapter in the Moorings Sociable Club’s lifecycle. A “then”, a moment, that follows on from historic moments and precedes future “thens”.

This is not a guidebook on how to do things, nor is it a manual for suggested best practice. It is an archaeology and atlas of a building and a project, which is both the backdrop and protagonist, and collaborative processes between a client trying to do things differently and an artist finding herself working within architecture to positively disrupt how “regeneration” might be done (slowly). It is an artwork, and a container of process and practice.

The evening will include readings by Verity-Jane Keefe, a conversation between Verity and Kate chaired by Daisy Froud, and the premiere screening of The Architect - a short film made by Verity about the former architect of the Moorings Social Club, Stephen Mooring.

Verity-Jane Keefe is a visual artist working predominantly in the public realm to explore the complex relationship between people and place. She is interested in the role of the artist within urban regeneration and how experiential practice can touch upon and raise ambitions of existing and invisible communities. Since 2003 she has been developing new models of practice within municipal, collaborative contexts – following long term residency approaches that produce outcomes that explore the politics of participation, transferring agency and power along the way and making the work public in both the public realm and institutional contexts.

Her practice takes many forms, but always starts with lurking, place and archives. The incidental, the overheard, the conversation, the observed. Working with text, moving image, site-based research, archive, installation, writing, print, social structures and object. She is currently delivering public commissions with Towner Gallery (Eastbourne), is the current Wheatley Fellow and Incidental Artist with Eastside Projects (Birmingham), artist in residence for Barts Hospital (London) and is a pre-doc candidate at ZHdK (Zurich).

She is an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins where she teaches on the BA Fine Art XD pathway and also a Unit Master at the Architectural Association.

A Book by Verity-Jane Keefe, in conversation with Kate Batchelor.

Designed with Paul Bailey.

Published by Peabody.

Printed by Graphius, Gent.

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk.