HOUSE OF TABLEAU

HOUSE OF TABLEAU surveys the boundaries and promises of inclusive high streets.

HOUSE OF TABLEAU surveys the boundaries and promises of inclusive high streets. A multi-disciplinary group of researchers, artists and architects will explore together with the public the different scales of expression and forms of design intervention that help sustain and promote a community’s social needs and delights. The invited speakers, Manijeh Verghese (AA / Unscene Architecture), Jonathan Tuckey (Jonathan Tuckey Design), and Holly Stevenson, together with the facilitators Lisa Chan (It’s a Local Collective) and Yushi Li will share and discuss their works and methodology for a re-interpretation of London’s high streets, centring around the theme of social sustainability and drawing reference to the domestic – how can we be more at home on our streets?

HOUSE OF TABLEAU is part of the AA Summer Public Programme. Please reserve tickets to attend in person at the Richard Saltoun Gallery, or to stream the talk online. The event is supported by MALIN+GOETZ.

About the speakers:

Manijeh Verghese is the Head of Public Engagement at the Architectural Association, where she is also a Unit Master of Diploma 12, a seminar leader for the AA Professional Practice for Fifth Year course, and a member of the Senior Management Team. She is currently an External Examiner at Cambridge University and is a member of the Festival Committee for London Festival of Architecture. She has worked for architecture practices including John Pawson and Foster + Partners, and has contributed to design publications such as Disegno and Icon, as well as think-tanks, books and peer reviewed journals. She also works on independent curatorial projects such as the new South Asia Gallery for the Manchester Museum in partnership with the British Museum. She is a co-founder of the practice Unscene Architecture and is the co-curator of The Garden of Privatised Delights - the British Pavilion at the 17th International Venice Architecture Biennale, which is now on display at The Building Centre in London. Instagram: @Manijeh.Verghese | Twitter: @ManijehVerghese

Jonathan Tuckey Design is one of the UK’s leading advocates for remodelling and radically transforming old buildings for modern uses. The practice does this in ways that reveal what buildings from different eras mean to us today. With an office in London and Andermatt, Switzerland, Jonathan Tuckey Design has worked on commercial and residential projects within Europe, the United States of America as well as South America. Based in London, Jonathan Tuckey Design enthusiastically embraces an architecture of change, for example, by juxtaposing contemporary elements with original features of existing buildings to create exciting and dynamic new uses. For this reason, the practice set up Building on the Built, a programme of exhibitions and talks that explores unfamiliar architectural responses to existing structures.

Holly Stevenson is an artist with a practice actively connected to psychoanalysis and feminism and works predominantly with clay: Her ongoing project Sigmund Freud’s Ashtray results in fluid ceramic sculptures which explore Freud’s favourite ashtray and last cigar as an analytical metaphor. She graduated from Chelsea’s MAFA with a Stanley Picker Bursary in 2012 and previously gained a History of Art MA (Hons) from Glasgow University in 2001 where she wrote a dissertation on the replication of Rome in souvenir culture. She has been a recipient of multiple awards. Recently Holly was commissioned by The CoLAB Temple to make her first outdoor ceramic sculpture; Another Mother is a public work that neatly replaces a missing baluster in Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s Temple Gardens with a ceramic interpretation of his wife and children. The work encompasses themes of labour, matriarchy, patriarchy, family and trauma all of which are centrally important to the artist’s practice. Website: www.holly-stevenson.co.uk | Instagram: @holly__stevenson

Lisa Chan is an interdisciplinary designer, curator, and educator. She enjoys creating objects and spaces that bring people together to test for resilient social relationships and sustainable constructions. Her practice, IT’S A LOCAL COLLECTIVE, has worked with Network Rail and the London Festival of Architecture to rethink social furniture that enhances our wellbeing in public spaces as well as with Malin+Goetz and the Arts Council England to curate an immersive gallery that prioritises social expression and integration. The practice’s projects have been nominated for the Dezeen Awards 2021, and the Archdaily 2022 Building of the Year Awards, Culture Architecture. She is a tutor and alumna of the Architectural Association. Website: itsalocalcollective.com | Instagram: @itsalocalcollective | Twitter: LCollective_

Yushi Li is a Chinese artist based in London. She holds an MA in Photography and is now doing her PhD in Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art. Li received the Royal Photography Society Hundred Heroines Award in 2019 and was one of the winners of the Female in Focus prize in 2021. Li’s work has been exhibited internationally, with recent group show at Fotografiska, Stockholm and solo shows at Union Gallery,London and Vasli Souza, Oslo. Li’s work mainly engages with the question of the gaze, in relation to gender, sexuality and desire. Website: yushi.li | Instagram: @yushilii