As part of Ben Judd’s Stanley Picker Fellowship project The Origin, a series of workshops, performances, talks and tours took place at Stanley Picker Gallery, a boat moored in Kingston Upon Thames and online throughout June and July 2021.

On 18 June, Robin Hutchinson spoke about his exciting work with local creative collective and charity, The Community Brain.

The Community Brain uses the widest range of the arts, local history, social enterprise and community-led regeneration in order to give places renewed importance and pride. They help people to imagine and command their own story – instead of following those written for them by others.

Recent projects include new mural commissions for Tolworth Station and The Museum of Today, which invited individuals or households to select an object from their home that had a particular resonance for them during the first national lockdown and to tell its story.

The talk took place at the Gallery in the exhibition space. And was live-streamed via Youtube Live. 

Ben Judd’s Stanley Picker Fellowship project The Origin reflects on Britain’s island status, both literal and metaphorical, and how islands shape the communities that live there. The Origin brings together the communities surrounding the Stanley Picker Gallery – from Kingston University students and academics to local networks, charities and residents – and asks them to imagine a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership. A temporary community, an experiment in living, a fictional island group. This collaborative project culminates this summer with an installation at the Gallery, a boat on the River Thames and a series of performances, workshops and events – a rehearsal for an alternative future.