Becontree Estate August Residency

AVAILABLE    

Sunday 8th August - Monday 30th August 2021

Application deadline: 

Wednesday 28th July 6pm 

3 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room, generous garden

Hypha Studios & Becontree Forever are looking for a creative practitioner to live in & make use of this house to develop their practice, explore new ideas or create a new project. The space is provided for free* along with an artist fee & small grant towards your public event or community engagement.

You are welcome to bring family members with you on your residency & to treat the house as your home for the duration. You may wish to use one of the bedrooms as a studio, or create work within and around the whole building. *we provide the space for free but you have to put down a deposit which you get back when you leave the property on time and in good condition We welcome your inventiveness in your use of the space & how it can support you develop your practice.

Perhaps you want to make a part studio / part gallery, or develop a horticulture-related project in the garden, maybe you want to turn a room into a collaborative workshop, or develop a theatrical performance. You may want to make work about the entire estate, or just a tiny physical detail of the house’s fabric.

All we ask is that you consider the following:

A site-responsive proposal though we encourage a broad interpretation of what “site” is to you & could include the architecture, social history, garden, archive or more

Community involvement which can be from any local community you identify & can be involved in your research, development, or public event

Your public event proposal as a critical element of your application, please give creative consideration  to this, who it will be for, & how it weaves with your creative practice

The Becontree Estate, in the borough of Barking & Dagenham, was the largest public housing estate in the world when it was constructed between 1921 & 1935. In total, it is over 26,000 homes to a ‘garden city’ model. Your work on this residency could consider the radical roots of the estate, seek to be part of the dialogue with existing communities, or help inform its future story.

BECONTREE FOREVER:

Becontree Forever is a year-long program of art, architecture & new infrastructure to mark 100 years of the Becontree Estate. It is led by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, in collaboration with residents and local partners such as the schools on the estate, Arc Theatre, Barking & Dagenham Youth Dance, East End Women’s Museum, Girls Like Us, Green Shoes Arts, Love Music Hate Racism, Studio 3 Arts, Soul and Sound & The White House, with national partners such as Create London, EFG London Jazz Festival, Focal Point Gallery, Serpentine Galleries & the Wellcome Trust.

We are committed to communities and culture.

The council have allocated this house as a space for the integration of culture into the estate for the duration of the Becontree Forever centenary celebrations, to further understanding of the architecture and histories of the estate, and as a central space for local communities to participate in culture. It has been used by other artists, and after the completion of these Hypha Studios residencies the house will be refurbished and returned to the local housing stock in Autumn 2021.

Public engagement is critical to the mission of this project and we ask you to deeply consider how you will involve local residents, schools or other groups within the creation of your work or in the public events. Support will be available to help you connect to local communities as your idea requires in order to best celebrate the estate’s history and community’s future through culture.