Open Studio & Winter Celebration

Saturday 14 December, 2pm-4pm

The White House

Join us at The White House to celebrate the end of another great year and everyone who has contributed to the community here. We will be showcasing artwork from local artists including Sonia Ali and Cynthia Waithaka as we approach the end of the Make Room Studio Bursary alongside selected Make Room artists showcasing the diversity of creativity at The White House. So let’s come together and raise a glass to the end of another year.

The Make Room Studio Bursary was awarded to Sonia Ali and Cynthia Waithaka in June 2019 and they have been developing their practice in The White House studio. Come along to meet Sonia and Cynthia and find out more about what they have been creating.

Sonia will be presenting a ‘cabinet of botanical-inspired art curiosities’ stemming from her experiments and developments in learning the art form of botanical illustration over the course of the bursary. Rather than showing solely ‘final pieces of work’, she will also be showing the threads of thinking, research, and readings to explore the idea of what goes on ‘behind the scenes’ in the process of making as well as ‘art as process’. 

During her bursary, Cynthia has been exploring methods of de-cluttering as a way of focusing and developing her art practice. Cynthia will be presenting a series of bags made and adorned with found and salvaged materials. Created with patterns made from tracing the shapes of the oceans on a map. Cynthia hopes to raise a deeper awareness of and empathy for the effects of plastic waste on the environment and to highlight our relationships to the world and each other, within and without. 

Free and open to all 

Make Room is a new creative programme that supports artists to develop their practice through a programme of events, mentoring opportunities, studio and project bursaries, and creative co-working. The programme will develop organically and collaboratively, shaped by those who engage with it, with the aim of developing cooperative ways of working, helping to democratise decision making across our programme.   

Studio Bursaries provide free dedicated studio space, access to one-to-one mentoring and a travel stipend with the aim of helping to alleviate the financial constraints of art making and widen access to opportunities within the arts.