Throughout 2023, we worked with Mosaic Rooms to offer event commissions for OSE alumni James Jordan Johnson & Sarah Al-Sarraj and Simina Neagu to deliver a series of workshop, screening & performance events as part of Mosaic Rooms public In Response strand.

The Mosaic Rooms’ commissioning strand In Response was initiated in 2019 to support creative practice amongst early career collectives and individuals often marginalised by the sector. Previous participants include Qanat, AVAH, Murat Adash, LUMIN, New Media Society, LIFTA, Zahed Sultan/Haramacy, Hervisions, POA (Pride of Arabia) and EAST (Eating at the Same Table). 

Partnership Events:

Open Forum: Cultural Strategies for Solidarity and Liberation with Sarah Al Sarraj and Aditi Ahalya Jaganathan

Date: 7 December 2023

Time: 7.00pm

Venue: The Mosaic Rooms 226 Cromwell Rd, London SW5 0SW

What is the role of cultural workers and artists within movements?
How can we build and vision our political engagement beyond critique alone?
Which methods can inspire creative strategy to shift mainstream culture?
How can we move beyond urgency towards building sustainable cultural infrastructures outside of institutions?

This open forum hosted by Sarah Al Sarraj invites cultural workers, artists and organisers to collectively think through past and emerging practices of cultural solidarity. Joined by creator, writer and educator Aditi Ahalya Jaganathan, we will reflect on our roles, and how we can respond creatively to collective liberation, and the movements in DR Congo, Haiti, Kurdistan, Iran, Palestine and Sudan.

Attendees are invited to come with questions and ideas, aimed at building a wider framework of sustainable cultural infrastructures beyond institutions.

Sarah Al Sarraj is a visual artist and cultural worker. Her practice spans painting, comics, and moving image. She is currently developing an animation practice having been awarded a grant from the Arts Council. Her practice cultivates a visual language that aims to disrupt hierarchies of authority and knowledge production while imagining liberated futures. She is currently exploring notions of subjectivity, spirituality, and metaphysics, as they relate to the natural world. She currently works on building community-led public health at Healing Justice London and previously worked at Forensic Architecture and within Palestinian advocacy.

Sarah Al-Sarraj was an Open School East Associate in 2021-22.

23 August with Simina Neagu

Date: Thursday 1 June 2023

Time: 7.00pm

Venue: The Mosaic Rooms 226 Cromwell Rd, London SW5 0SW

Watch 23 August (2023, 24mins), a new work by OSE Associate Artist Simina Neagu. The short film explores the history of the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students which took place in Bucharest, Romania in 1953.

In the spirit of recuperating a hopeful, partly utopian story of transnational solidarity for future generations, the story is told through the perspective of two activists – John La Rose, from Trinidad, and Paul Joseph, from South Africa, who forged a life-long friendship after meeting at this anti-colonial and anti-imperialist festival.

Simina Neagu (b. Romania) is an artist, curator and writer based in London. She works primarily with text that takes the shape of digital works, publications, events, exhibitions, installations and more recently, moving image work. Often informed by her own experience of migration, her projects have explored structures, collectivity and multiple, overlooked histories. Between 2022-2023, she is an Artist Associate at Open School East in Margate.

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Constellations of Multiple Wishes with James Jordan Johnson

Date: Tuesday 20 April 2023

Time: 7.00pm

Venue: The Mosaic Rooms 226 Cromwell Rd, London SW5 0SW

We’re very excited to announce the first public event as part of our latest partnership and collaboration with Mosaic Rooms, London. We warmly invite you to join us for a newly devised performance by Open School East alumni James Jordan Johnson, in which he will respond to the current exhibition Constellations of Multiple Wishes, further expanding on his practice of corporally investigating layers of memory.

James Jordan Johnson is an artist-researcher (b.1997, London) based in Margate working within performance and sculpture. His practice is concerned with the relationship between Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Diasporic material culture and performative histories. Thinking about the role memory plays in the political matters of citizenship, legibility, land and myth-making, he tends to ground his work within site-specific or public spaces, using topographical mapping, material and object activation.

James was an OSE Associate in 2021-22.

jamesjordanjohnson.com

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About the Partnership

“We are so delighted to be partnering with The Mosaic Rooms on the In Response public programme commissioning, as part of OSE’s Alumni development strand. The Mosaic Rooms create such an important support system for showcasing and supporting artists and to have our recent Alumni, James Jordan Johnson & Sarah Al-Sarraj, be part of the programme will be such an incredible opportunity to develop and showcase both their practice and research. This opportunity for our Alumni Artists, is an integral way to ensure we are supporting early career artists to develop and sustain both their practice and professional development, develop networks and enable them a platform to connect to new audiences and peers.” 

Polly Brannan – Artistic Director, Open School East

“The In Response public programme commissioning strand at The Mosaic Rooms was initiated in 2019 to support creative practice amongst early career collectives and individuals often marginalised by the creative sector. This year we are excited to partner with Open School East for a takeover of this strand by their brilliant associates and look forward to building a meaningful space for collaboration and professional development. We have long admired the work of Open School East and look forward to joining our shared visions to create an open and experimental environment for creative expression.”

Angelina Radakovic – Curator, Mosaic Rooms

The Mosaic Rooms are a non-profit art gallery and bookshop dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond. We do this through contemporary art exhibitions, artist residencies and multidisciplinary events (including performances, music events, film screenings, current affairs, talks, book launches, reading groups and more), featuring artists, activists, collectives and thinkers. Our creative learning programme aims to develop an ongoing dialogue with the local community, schools, youth groups and art colleges, encouraging active participation in artist led projects.

Celebrating its 15th year, The Mosaic Rooms open a yearlong programme that interrogates active solidarity, support structures and alternative models of self-organisation and collaboration.