Brent 2020, London Borough of Culture is presenting the first Brent Biennial taking place in public spaces, libraries, and streets across the Borough, from 19 September – 13 December 2020.
The programme includes 23 new commissions and projects that will be presented in locations across the Borough and features international and Brent based artists. The Create curatorial team are working with artists Pio Abad and Dawn Mellor to help realize two major works in the Kilburn High Street and the Kingsbury Library and High Road.
Pio Abad
Pio Abad will launch his first permanent public artowkr as part of the Brent Biennale 2020. Abad will create a large-scale mural on Kilburn High Road that depicts personal, significant and idiosyncratic objects/ephemera collected from residents that live in the area. Kilburn’s rich history of migration as well as, today, being home to people from a number of countries including, Ireland, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Turkey will inform the work.
Abad is interested in the lives of objects. He looks at them as carriers of narratives, each one able to contain an entire collection of histories, geographies and emotional journeys. The value of an ornament is often reliant on the narrative that it holds: as a souvenir of a place, as an heirloom from an ancestor long gone, as a reminder of a milestone in someone’s life, even as a private joke shared between family members.
Courtesy of the artist
Dawn Mellor
British artist Dawn Mellor has been commissioned to create their first permanent public artwork: a large-scale mural in Kingsbury, Brent, celebrating the life of singer-songwriter George Michael, who lived and went to school in the area. Co-commissioned by Studio Voltaire, Brent Borough of Culture 2020 and Create London, Mellor will create the nine-metre high artto be unveiled in September. A programme of free activities and learning programmes will take place with local schools that George Michael attended, as well as talks, walks and workshops.
Brent Borough of Culture
Brent is The Mayor’s London Borough of Culture for 2020. The programme explores the stories, art and emotions that hold life in Brent together, uncovering and celebrating the borough’s untold tales and unheard voices. To discover more about the Borough, please see the Brent 2020 website.