Arts & Culture  Features

Highlights from Winter in Nine Elms

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Published on
March 26, 2019

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We had a wonderful Winter here in Nine Elms and so we wanted to share with you some event highlights from our celebrations over the festive season, from arts and culture exhibitions to Christmas fairs.

We kicked off with a festive programme delivered by Battersea Power Station as the Thames riverside and Circus West Village were lit up by the interactive, sensory Christmas tree installation by Paris-based Studio Bryant.

 

Following on from this we headed over to Embassy Gardens on the first Saturday of December for mulled wine, hot chocolate, Christmas carols and to switch on the Christmas tree lights.

 

The lighting of the Christmas Tree coincided with the start of the incredible interactive poetry installation ‘Health Tips For The Year Ahead’ at StudioRCA. Delivered by Live Canon poetry, and conceived and curated by Helen Eastman and Anna Bruder, the exhibition covered three thousand years of poetry including advice, humour, solace and wisdom to provide Health Tips for 2019.

Over to the west side of Nine Elms, the Christmas Fair in Battersea Park brought together a host of stalls in a Winter Wonderland setting offering all sorts of festive fun including carollers, mulled wine stands, wine and cheese, raclette and Christmas decorations.

Up next was the launch of the wonderful display of Platanus, Nicky Hirst’s glazed cladding work symbolising the London Plane Trees planted across the city in the 1850s.  Delivered by UP Projects, the launch was accompanied by Matthew Darbyshire’s talk on the Sculpture Garden, an interactive play space which uses works exhibited in the 1951 Battersea Open Air Sculpture Show; and Mark Gubb leading a guided walk through Wassail, a trail of wayfinding and heritage markers.

On 25th January, members of Wandsworth and Lambeth Councils and the local community picked up their shovels to restore the missing two elm trees of Nine Elms near the Pavilion on Nine Elms Lane. As the sapling trees were being planted, singers including members of the Battersea Power Station community choir sung ‘Nine Songs for Nine Elms’, written by Lucy Cash and Fraya Thomsen in a spirited affair! Watch the video below to see the trees being brought to life.

The tail end of Winter saw James Capper’s Walking Ship exhibition open at Studio RCA. Bringing together drawings and maquettes, WALKING SHIP presents a 10-year evolutionary chronicle and the final visual synopsis of MUDSKIPPER, a 12-ton, hydraulic amphibian sculpture by British artist James Capper.

We had a great Winter in Nine Elms and we’re excited for new ventures this Spring including the launch of James Capper’s MUDSKIPPER on the Thames, Wandsworth Arts Fringe, London Craft Week, the make-over of Thessaly Road rail bridge and many more.  Stay tuned to the Nine Elms website to get the latest.


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