About this Event
Join us for a film screening of the film Beuys and a post screening conversation with artists duo Ackroyd & Harvey to celebrate the planting of a circle of 7 oak trees in Crossway Park in Thamesmead.
Join us for a drink from 6.30pm. The screening will start at 7pm.
As part of their extensive national project Beuys’ Acorns – The Prelude & the Planting, which aims at planting seventeen circles of oak trees in public spaces until 2027, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey are bringing their fourth circle to Crossway Park and Thamesmead in partnership with Peabody. Six trees have already been planted in December. The last tree will complete the circle on 29 January 2026. (17:30pm-18:30pm, Crossway Park, SE28 8NG)
The trees for Thamesmead have been grown from acorns produced by oak trees planted by German artist Joseph Beuys in Kassel, Germany, between 1982 and 1987 as part of his project 7000 Oaks - City Forestation Instead of City Administration. To give an insight into Beuys’ ideas and artistic practice, Ackroyd & Harvey, Peabody, and the Goethe-Institut are presenting the documentary Beuys by renowned documentarian Andres Veiel. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey moderated by Nicolas Ehler, Director of the Goethe-Institut London.
About the film
Few 20th century German artists were as controversial Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986). For him, the creative process was a revolutionary act which everyone could participate in and shape. “Everyone is an artist” was his famous claim that challenged artistic hierarchy and authority as well as the separation of art and life. Beuys was a sculptor, painter, performer, shaman, activist, political campaigner, and teacher—to name but a few of the myriad roles through which he interacted with the people around him. Interaction, whether through forming grassroots political groups, a creative and experimental university run independently of the state, or through public performances and debates was key to his practice. One of his most famous projects, 7000 Oaks - City Forestation Instead of City Administration (7000 Eichen – Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung), carried out between two documenta exhibitions (1982 – 1987), long predated current debates around the climate and ecological emergency.
In his documentary, filmmaker Andres Veiel embarks upon an extensive research, bringing to light a host of unknown archive material. Contemporary witnesses who knew Beuys well, like British art critic and curator Caroline Tisdall, German graphic artist Klaus Staeck, or Johannes Stüttgen, a former master student of Beuys, share their views on Beuys. What emerges is a collage of visual and audio documents providing viewers with unique access to Beuys’ complex ideas and work.
Germany 2017, 117 mins. With English subtitles.
Directed by Andres Veiel
About Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey
Ackroyd & Harvey have been investigating Nature-based processes of growth and decay for over three decades, addressing the forces of anthropogenic climate breakdown and bio-diversity loss that are rapidly reshaping and rewriting Earth’s systems. Their time-based artworks intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history, evolving through extended research in response to people and place, interfacing their profound interest in local ecologies and global planetary concerns.
In 2019, they co-founded Culture Declares Emergency, a collective of international and UK-based Hubs, sharing practical support to seek socio-ecological justice, and working towards regenerative change through culture, heritage and the arts. They have received international awards and prizes for their pioneering bio-chemical photography, including the Royal Academy Rose Award and have been widely commissioned for monumental interventions in the public realm, including London Olympics 2012; The David Attenborough Building, Cambridge; Aarhus Triennial; Derry-Londonderry UK City of Culture
Recent exhibitions include, The Gallery Season 5, Brazil/UK; Culture Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, London; La Galeria, UC Merced, California; Science Gallery, London; European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024; RA Summer Exhibition; Hayward Gallery, London; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA; 23RD Biennale of Sydney, Australia; Somerset House, London; Lewisham Borough of Culture, London 2022; Tate Modern, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
More about their project
Picture: © Andrew Shaylor
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Nest, Floor 1, 3 Cygnet Square,, Barking, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
