Trellis Festival - East London artists and communities

Funded by the research council for Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPSRC) and UCL East Public Art Programme, the Trellis Festival connects our world-class researchers with dynamic contemporary artists and local communities in east London, to foster a pioneering programme of knowledge exchange and facilitate co-creation of artworks near the site of UCL East. The resulting works are powerful, insightful, passionate and political, giving a voice to local people whose stories are rarely heard.

Find out more about each of the five featured projects below:

• Flow Unlocked is a creative participatory research project which seeks to highlight the importance of relationships to autistic people, rewrite the damaging stereotypes that exist about autistic people and investigate the questions of co-authorship and representation inherent to our process. 
   
• Mulberry - Tree of Plenty is a collaborative project which explores how the iconic mulberry tree can be used as a vehicle to stimulate discussion, debate and engagement in cutting-edge research and applications in biotechnology, heritage and contemporary engaged art practice. 
   
• H Is For Hostile Environment is a close dialogue and collaboration project which explores migration and asylum seeking. This moving-image piece turns the lens on the hostile environment policy, whilst exploring the rich, textured cultural and social lives of those who have made East London their home. 
   
• The Xenia Citizen Science Project is a collaboration with Xenia, an organisation for women learning English and women who speak English, based at Hackney Museum. Knowledge, language and learning was shared around bio-degradable plastic, food waste and composting, in the process prompting a consideration of care in the practices of the participants and project partners.
   
• Light-Wave aspires to facilitate a creative collaboration with local deaf people, recognising the East London Deaf community’s history, culture and language, and thereby creating an artistic and academic legacy and tangible symbol of the community’s richness and resilience.

Find out more about the project here and below.

Follow Trellis on Twitter at @UCLEngage for previews, updates and behind–the-scenes reveals.