What's on
From family support, fitness classes and learning to art exhibitions, festivals and talks, our activities are wide and far reaching.
Whilst we’re raring to go for 2019 it feels wrong to press forward into the new year without a quick look back at 2018 and everything that went on at Oxo Tower Wharf.
FASHIONABLE START TO THE YEAR
We kicked off the year with a fashion theme at Bargehouse, hosting Xander Zhou’s A/W 18 show during Men’s Fashion Week in January and continued into February with exhibitions from Ravensbourne’s Department of Fashion and London College of Fashion MA.
FACEBOOK’S FIRST EXHIBITION
Over at gallery@oxo Facebook brought us their first ever exhibition, ‘Gallery of Groups’ which showcased six unique groups that had used the social platform to come together. Ranging from sausage dog lovers and Quidditch players to older than usual Skateboarders and Rock Art painting purveyors. Plus, the sixth group featured was Coin Street’s own Over 50s Arts Club! The exhibition gained a huge amount of coverage including BBC London News, The Times, the Daily Telegraph and Hypebeast.
ART WITH A HEART
Year on year we host thought-provoking issue based and charity exhibitions across both spaces. 2018’s offer at gallery@oxo included Care International’s ‘Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide’, interactive exhibition ‘Reframe Dementia’ from Alzheimer’s Research UK, Plan UK’s photography show ‘Brave: The Girls of South Sudan’ among many more. Bargehouse played host to powerful photographic exhibitions including ‘We Feed the World’ to celebrate World Food Day and ‘The Spiral of Containment: Rape’s Aftermath’ to coincide with International Woman’s Day.
WINDRUSH 70th ANNIVERSARY
A real highlight was the return of Jim Grover with a new photo story ‘Windrush: Portrait of a Generation’ which welcomed 13,000 visitors to view the result of Jim’s year documenting the lives of south London’s Windrush generation. The exhibition was a phenomenal success with coverage from The Guardian, Londonist, The Economist, BBC News (TV, radio and online), British Journal of Photography and many more. We interviewed Jim after the exhibition, read here for some fantastic insights.
NEW CREATIVES
Graduate season is always a highlight and each summer New Creatives aims to showcase the best up and coming talent; 2018 saw 11 universities involved with courses ranging from fine art to performance and product design to photography.
ART NIGHT
Another favourite moment from summer was our participation in Art Night London in July. We had a full building takeover at Bargehouse with site-specific installations, video and performances from artists including Jeff Cain, Sebastian Kite, Kate McCambridge and Louise Alderson-Bythell.
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL
September was a big month for us. We always celebrate London Design Festival but this year was a little different as we had the pleasure of hosting cutting-edge show, designjunction. Bringing over 200 international brands as well as outdoor installations, talks and exhibitions, designjunction activated Riverside Walkway, the Doon Street site and Oxo Tower Wharf welcoming 27,000 visitors over 4 days.
NEW DESIGN SHOPS
We also saw the launch of four new design studios on the first and second floors of Oxo Tower Wharf, Noodoll, Lyte, Moxon and Aneberry as well as a new location for neon lighting designers Locomocean and jewellery collective JeDeCo; there are now 29 designer-maker studios and shops across the ground, first and second floors offering interiors, lighting, gifts, homeware, fashion and jewellery,– if you’ve never visited before, make it a must for this year!
GLAMOROUS NIGHTS
Bargehouse had its fair share of product launches and press events across the year. From the launch of the Metropolitan Collection from kitchen surface designer Caesarstone to a trainer launch for Reebok, we certainly had some fun evenings enjoying the building in its many different guises. To polish the year’s launched off nicely, Veuve Clicquot chose Bargehouse to tell the tale of Madame Clicquot for the fourth instalment of the Widow Series.
There are so many more fantastic moments to mention but hopefully it’s clear… we had an exciting year! From indoor croquet to signwriting extravaganzas at Bargehouse and Taiwanese temples to dazzling jewellery at gallery@oxo, the events programme has been jam packed. We’ve seen innovative new products and welcomed new tenants in the community of designer makers and opened a brand new entrance to the central Courtyard too!
We’re looking forward to a new year and all that 2019 has in store – follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for the latest news.