Peckham, 2020

We secured a 2-week residency at The New Earth Art School a pop-up space which had taken over a vacant gallery in Peckham, London. It was early March and we set about transforming the small basement space

A friendly welcome

This time our guests had found out about The Body Room via social media to request an appointment.

We wanted to make sure our space was welcoming and professional to give them the trust and confidence to enter fully into the experience.

With branded shirts, and hand-painted signage our reception area carefully positioned the project and felt like a little oasis of calm. Much like visiting a beauty salon ...

... except our invitation to women was somewhat different!

Photo courtesy of Julia Sabiniarz.

Our roots

We had started The Body Room as we had wanted to deal with something about ourselves as women. The expectations we had felt were made of our bodies, a desire to take up space and in the face of creeping misogyny, threats to Roe vs Wade and the election of Trump, a desire to experience our body in a different way.

So our starting point was to invite other women. All appointments were free and open to all who identified as women.

Fully booked!

Our message resonated online and we were fully booked for our 2-week run. In our first week, we welcomed 14 wonderful guests to our creative space ...

Our guests embraced the space ...

And our guests shared some wonderful thoughts

"Spending an hour alone in a room contemplating your own body could sound like something designed to torture women, but it was so meditative and creative and energising"

"I let my body take the lead. It was amazing to just let the process unfold, without intellectualising it or trying to achieve something. Giving my self permission to make a mess and use my own body to make marks on the paper"

"I loved it I felt confident. Fuck it at 50, I felt some deep emotions come up when I started which led me to have gratitude for my body."

"I loved the absolute liberty to do anything. I drew, I painted, I wrote, I stretched, I danced, I stood still and thought."

"What I most loved was the feeling of being supported by other women, not just to be given a space but to be given a space with the understanding that women are there for me as a container and are supporting that time."

"I thought about my body and the feeling of painting with it."

"What parts of my body I love and why. I then tried to think about parts of my body I disliked so I could try to reframe those thoughts and make them into positive ones. I loved the power I felt being naked in this scenario. I felt like a goddess! "

"Free to not be bothered by anyone, male or female, free from judgement. I felt extremely relaxed, like I belonged there."

"I felt completely comfortable and safe at all times to express myself however I felt. It was truly empowering."

And then Covid hit ...

Actually it had been a presence throughout the first week. We'd carefully antibacterial-wiped every single item on the table between guests. Including each individual stick of charcoal and chalk ...

.. but we suddenly realised that borders were closing and lockdown was coming.

Safety and care was our raison d'être for The Body Room and we suddenly realised we had to suspend our second week of appointments. We were sad, but knew it was the right thing to do .. so we set about working out how we could share the storty of our Peckham residency during lockdown.

A show in a shed ...

The Body Room is a vessel for exploring many themes. Each guest has an individual experience, but en masse the outpourings tell us something about contemporary society.

We hosted an Instagram Live discussion to share and explore this work. The fragments shown were donated anonymously by our guests in Peckham.

Our Peckham edition also received press coverage from Art Plugged.

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