Projects at Gunpowder Park

Untitled (live performance on the meridian line at Gunpowder Park) Barbara Gamper and Marcus Woodcock

In summer 2007, Gunpowder Park established a new partnership with Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design to pilot a new opportunity for Fine Art students to work in the varied landscape of the Park. As part of the Context and Presentation unit of the curriculum, a group of 25 Part Time BA Year 2 students worked in Gunpowder Park over five weeks, engaging with the physical aspects of the location, the social aspects of those who use it, and working with the LANS staff at the Park to realise their ideas. Following the success of this initial residency a second group of Part Time BA Year 2 students worked in Gunpowder Park throughout May 2008 to develop their artistic practice.

This external project at Gunpowder Park has enabled students to develop an experience of working in the outside environment, consider the links between their practice and a new context, engage with dynamic research programmes sited in and around Gunpowder Park, liaise with Gunpowder Park staff and the general public to enrich the understanding of their work and how it communicates beyond the studio environment.

This opportunity also fulfilled certain learning outcomes for the students, such as developing an ability to work independently or collaboratively in a shared situation, to negotiate the challenges of an external context, and to identify, analyse and critically evaluate alternatives for artistic practice outside the students' own art institutional context.

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design 
Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design is a part of the University of the Arts London. Central Saint Martins has a distinguished international reputation and offers one of the most diverse and comprehensive ranges of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in arts and design in the country.  It is, in essence, the complete arts College.

The residency in summer 2007 was led by artist and tutor William Cobbing, supported by Alice Anderson, and in May 2008, the second residency was led by tutors and artists Anne Eggebert and Sarah Cole supported by Alice Anderson.