Interview Carol Kenna, Grenwich Mural Workshop
JP Carol you set up Greenwich Mural Workshop in 1975 with Steve Lobb. How did this come about and what was your involvement in visual art before GMW?
Following Art School I continued to work as a painter at the same time as bringing up a young family. Stephen was teaching and also painting.
Our first public installation was Chatham ‘Upday’ in 1969, followed by a large installation at Alexander Palace – ‘Art Spectrum -Cover 1’ in 1971 and then’ Cover 2’ for the Serpentine Gallery in 1972 – an installation including soft sculpture. All three were joint projects between myself and Stephen Lobb.
In 1970 my paintings were commenting on Northern Ireland and Vietnam and were exhibited in the Polytechnic of Central London (PCL) and the Royal Academy London Group shows.
Steve was teaching architects at the PCL and we were involved in street theatre projects in Woolwich.
As a result I decided to undertake a Post-graduate course in Social and Economic Planning at the PCL – essentially town planning. I was awarded a bursary to North America, Pace University, in 1974 where I came into contact with mural painters in New York and Chicago and on my return suggested to Steve that we could amalgamate our various interests, in architecture, teaching, community commentary and politics through painting murals in conjunction with local community organisations.
In January 1975 we set up Greenwich Mural Workshop and approached a number of tenants associations asking whether they would be interested in working with us. Three responded positively and we spent the next few years working with these groups. Subsequent projects coming through word of mouth.
We expanded our work to include banner-making, silk-screen poster making working from home. In fact you John, made our first complete ’print shop’ for our first public base on Meridian Estate.
Our object was to work within the borough of Greenwich on the premise that if you can’t live with your own work why should anyone else. The issues were collectively ours too.
The People’s River, Greenwich Mural Workshop, 1975, Creek Road, Greenwich SE10,
The mural depicts local people encouraging the redevelopment of the River Thames for industry, transport and leisure.
Commissioned by Meridian Estate Tenants Association.
JP GMW worked with both murals and printing. Can you tell me about why you chose to work with those media and what you hoped to achieve through them?
Essentially, we were offering the skills that we had, but then would teach ourselves additional skills according to the needs of a particular project. We were both fine art trained – painting, print making, photography plus private needlework skills. Stephen was a teacher and interested in passing on skills, I was interested in how local people could affect their own neighbourhoods both physically and politically.
The murals were designed to make public the aspirations and concerns of the groups we worked with. Given we were working with household paints their expected life span was 5 years as the major paint companies wouldn’t guarantee anything longer – it would have affected their profits!!!! However, our second mural ‘Floyd Road” is still on the wall some 50 years after it was painted. Although it is now flaking and really should either be repainted or removed.
Women In Chile
Poster by Greenwich Mural Workshop 1980s.
JP Implicit in both the name (Greenwich Mural Workshop) and your long-term involvement in that area of London (you’re still there 5 decades later), is a dedicated commitment to a locality. Could you tell me something about that commitment and how and why it came about and endured over so long a time.?
We chose to work predominantly in the borough of Greenwich and mostly in the less well-off neighbourhoods. This had a practical side in that it would have been difficult to have got planning permission for a painted gable end in Blackheath – in fact I don’t think there are many gable ends.
It also included the philosophy of working where you lived. At the time certain architects also made a point of living in their latest construction – at least for a period of time. Working with your neighbours, running courses, working in schools and on environmental projects, helping/hoping to improve where we lived.
We have worked in other places too and have undertaken commercial work, useful in underwriting our community work, especially as revenue funding started to dry up. Murals for Surrey Quays Tesco site – they wanted fruit and veg we gave them the history of Surrey Docks and its people, Centros in Woolwich – the history of food production and the communities that supported us.
People of Greenwich Unite Against Racism, Woolwich, SE18, 1982-6
Commissioned by Greenwich Action Committee Against Racism, The GLC and The London Borough of Greenwich
JP When we worked alongside each other in 70s, we described our work as ‘Community Art’ is that a label you remain comfortable with?
Overall yes, although now I understand community better as ‘communities’ as I don’t believe there is such a thing as a single cohesive community.
For me community art involved working collectively, valuing people’s contributions equally, distinct from gallery art in that it could not be ‘owned’ nor accumulate wealth other than the value it had for a particular community or neighbourhood.
I recall we also termed ourselves as ‘art workers’ rather than ‘artists’ and when we first started painting murals we made sure that we were on the scaffolding at the same time as others were going to work and probably still there when they came home. That required intensive juggling of child-care.
JP More lately your practice has employed photography. How would you describe your photography practice and how does differ or overlap with your mural work?
I have always taken photos, since a young girl learning on my grandmother’s box camera and getting my first brownie when I was about 11.
When we started painting murals that became my / our ‘own’ work. People would ask us – what do you do as an artist and we would reply paint murals. There was no distinction between that work and our practice as artists.
My photography was used to record projects, research subjects for the projects and occasionally record family.
In the mid 1980s I joined a local Women’s photography group and added subjects of interest to myself and kept taking photos. I started exhibiting with the Greenwich London Independent Photography Group and Greenwich Open Studios – as my work – independent from GMW. I take photos of everything around me, people, the river, local buildings and their erosion over time. The photos both complement and differ from the subjects of our murals – but I don’t paint murals anymore. In fact sadly I don’t paint anymore – which I must do.
Photography is also just my work, something I have to sustain without Steve’s input or constructive support and criticism. A hard act to follow after a lifetime of working together.
Wind of Peace, Creek Road, Greenwich SE10, 1983
One of 6 murals funded by GLC for Peace Year, undertaken by ‘London Muralists for Peace’: Brian Barnes – Riders of the Apocalypse; War and Peace – Dale McCrea & Pauline Harding; Peace Carnival – Ray Walker; Wind of Peace – Carol Kenna & Stephen Lobb. Paul Butler
JP Historically one tends to think of the mural movement, and the politically leaning mural movement in particular, as operating independently of the commercial art sector, not the least because buying and selling murals independently of their location presents considerable logistical problems. But Banksy has somehow upended those assumptions. How do you view Bansky’s work, and in particular it’s capacity to straggle on the one hand political statements, and on the other high end commodification?
It is amusing, how he equates political comment with amassing a fortune I don’t know. He operates in a different field than I do.
If I sell a photo I am really pleased because it means someone else likes my eye. But the murals and mosaics were an entirely different practice.
JP In the light of the past five decades experience, what advice would you give to a fifty years’ younger Carol Kenna and Steve Lobb if you met them today?
Don’t do it!!!!!
Seriously, be prepared for a tough life. But I don’t think you could do it the way we did. There is not the funding, nor the arm’s length policy of funders. These days if you accept their money then you follow their instructions.
I think we did bite the hand that fed us and they were broad minded enough to expect to be bitten apart from the Arts Council – Reds under the beds!!!
Surrey Quays Murals, Southwark, 1988
Commissioned by Fitzroy Robinson Partnership for Tesco supermarket.