Despacito Art School with Harold Offeh

27 + 28 May 2025
10am – 3pm
Open School East

Artist Harold Offeh joined Despacito to make costumes, characters and a final performance titled Plant Power Jamboree based on Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants (1979). In this workshop Despacito explored the secret life of plants and investigated the networks and ecologies that link their own gardens, parks and local crops to wider systems of movement, production and trade.

In the second part of the workshop Harold worked with Despacito to create their own electronic soundtracks, using sampling, to stage a micro-jamboree at OSE. Characters developed by Despacito include the eco-protectors Brother Nature and Warrior, Blue Rose, Venus Fly Trap and Sunset Flower.

Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice. Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories. He employs humour as a means to confront the viewer with historical narratives and contemporary culture. He has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including Tate Britain and Tate Modern, South London Gallery, Turf Projects, London, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Wysing Art Centre, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, MAC VAL, France, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark and Art Tower Mito.

This workshop is part of Open School East’s 2024-26 thematic cycle Home is where the garden is –  find out more here: openschooleast.org/home-is