In the heart of The Koppel Project Station, a former police station reborn after its closure in 2011, we have been breathing new life into this space. This year for a second time, we're proud to introduce OPEN CELLS, a residency programme that offers a haven for artists!
Former holding cells, now transformed into artists' studios, hold creativity that knows no bounds. It's about more than free studio space - it's about fostering a thriving community, connecting artistic minds, and sharing knowledge!
OPEN CELLS empowers emerging artists to grow while enriching our local community. The programme aims to turn this historic location into a vibrant epicentre of artistry and connection.
Since its opening in early May 2022, The Koppel Project Station has been a hub of creativity and community engagement. In this short span of time, we have proudly hosted over 70 events that encompass a wide spectrum of artistic experiences. These include solo and group exhibitions, artist residencies, talks, hands-on workshops, open studio sessions, performances, and various training events. We look forward to continuing this vibrant trajectory as we nurture both emerging artists and our local artistic community!
Listed below are the September 2023 cohort of OPEN CELLS artists in residence.
ABI OLA
Abi Ola is one of the six artists participating in the OPEN CELLS this September! A multidisciplinary artist specialising in oil and acrylic painting, screen printing, fabric collage, and installation, often the faces in her portraits are faceless to encourage the viewer to place themselves or their loved ones within the figures. Abi takes inspiration from old family photographs, African, and British textiles, William Morris, and her imagination. Ola graduated from The Slade School of Fine Arts, University College London, with a Master of Fine Arts in 2021, and prior to this in 2019 graduated from Goldsmiths University of London with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Recent exhibitions include Ferens Open 2023, at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, InTransit online exhibition ‘xBreath, Rest, Play’, 2023, New Contemporaries at the South London Gallery, 2023, and a solo exhibition at the Kupfer Gallery called ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’, 2023.
ELLEANNA CHAPMAN
Elleanna Chapman is an interdisciplinary artist, interested in the role that art can play as a political catalyst - both through community building, or as an agitator for revolution. Working across mediums, Chapman’s practice often involves site-specific installations, workshops, and events, as well as a range of prints and ephemera, that are always a bit tacky. Interested in a working-class aesthetic, combining kitsch motifs and their own obsession with cats and kittens, Chapman’s work may seem innocent, but behind all the cuteness is a militancy that refuses to be ignored. “I like to make collages. Collages in the form of collages, in the form of prints, in the form of enlarged images, in the form of canvas-based paintings and in the form of collected objects. The images and objects I choose to work with are kitsch, cute, ugly, and strange. They are often found or happened upon rather than specifically chosen and there are a lot of cats. There is no preciousness, and this lack of preciousness is crucial as it leaves me with more time to develop a political agenda. The cats are cute, but what do they need to say to agitate their viewers?” Her recent artistic journey is a continuous exploration of public and political art, with a focus on fostering community connections through site-specific projects, public workshops, and events. The socially engaged practice is dedicated to uplifting and supporting local youth by creating opportunities for creativity and community building. Through active social engagement and community workshops, Elleanna has refined her approach to participatory art. She envisions a future where everyone is welcome to both create and experience art, contributing to a more inclusive and vibrant artistic landscape. Elleanna Chapman is currently studying her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, having completed her Fine Art foundation at Central Saint Martins in 2021.
GIACOMO LAYET
Giacomo Layet is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in London. He holds a Master in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London and a Bachelor in Multimedia Arts from IUAV, Venice. Giacomo Layet’s visual research and artistic practice develop from a collection of found objects and materials which become useful means to express personal narratives. In a process of appropriation and alteration, his practice adapts and transforms mundane objects into suggestive forms, creating an ambiguous interplay between actuality and the imaginary.
ABHAYA RAJANI
Abhaya Rajani is a dalit queer feminist artist and educator based in London. They are invested in constructing a dialogue within safe spaces to develop anti-caste consciousness through films, workshops, tactile body extensions, durational performances, participatory research, translations and text. Through their practice, Abhaya is committed to develop alternative queer anti-caste epistemology countering the oppressive Euro-centric and Brahminical pedagogy. They are a co-founder of Rakhan Productions with Sam McNeil and Godhadi collective with India-based artists, Rajani Kadam, the late Satyawati Kadam, and the late Sugandha Kadam. Through acknowledging their dalit lineage and by employing crafts that have traditionally been considered caste-assigned/ womanly duties, they are dreaming to reimagine their labour in a contemporary art context. They are invested in constructing safe spaces through their collective transdisciplinary practices to resist centuries-old oppressive injustices of Brahminical patriarchy. Abhaya is a 2021-22 recipient of the Stanley Picker Print Fellowship, currently working as APR Fellow and visiting Lecturer at BA Fine Art, Kingston School of Art.
TOM R
Tom R was born and raised in London within a working class Irish community and his memories of this landscape, the secrets of its movements, continue to influence his practice. As an artist and writer, Tom’s work explores his daily experiences and the lives of the people around him against the backdrop of a treacly apocalypse with the bells of the climate crisis, social exhaustion, political fallacies and economic confusion ringing in our earsA. Tom has worked on projects for a wide range of cultural organisations and participated in artist residency programmes internationally. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and Writing at the Royal College of Art.
ASTRID CHUNG
Astrid Chung is an interdisciplinary artist who draws on their background in psychology and political advocacy to foster community around the collective exploration of the personal and social human experience, through storytelling, handicraft, and moving image. Their current creative practice features the traditional handicrafts mediums of clay and textile as cathartic representations of the visceral and personal, utilising analogue processes that have long told the story of humankind to foster the connection of people to their own bodies, each other, nature, and time in a modern society that breeds emotional, social, environmental, and temporal detachment. Integrating autoethnography and archival documentation, Astrid cultivates collections of sentimental objects that represent more than the sum of its parts, using the physical materiality of clay and textile to manifest into physical form the intangible feelings and sensations that constitutes what it means to be alive as a human being.
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