Katriona Beales
We are here

In late 2021, London-based artist Katriona Beales hosted an intergenerational after-school club for Barking and Dagenham-based foster carers and children in care.

During the pandemic many of our social, educational and work interactions adapted to become screen based. Together, the group explored how these interactions shape our identities and how we can develop a sense of feeling at home in ourselves, both inside and outside the screen.

The families shared stories, memories, and objects that are important to them. They experimented with different art materials, explored illustration, music-making, performance, and green screen technology to make new works that brought their treasured objects to life.

You can see highlights of the video artworks they made below.

About Katriona Beales
Katriona Beales is an internationally exhibited artist based in London, UK who makes digital artefacts, objects, moving image and installation. Beales work responds to the social implications of new technologies, in particular mental health and digital culture. Beales’s interdisciplinary project ‘Are We All Addicts Now?’, supported by The Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England, was shown at Furtherfield, London in 2017. Recent commissions were shown at the V&A Museum and Science Gallery London (2018) and a participatory green screen installation at Autograph (Feb-March 2020). Katriona was the lead artist on Supersmashers, South London Galleries’ programme for looked after children 2013-15, and has led the Family SEND workshop programme at Autograph since 2019. Katriona received an MA from Chelsea College of Arts and is a founding member of Artists' Union England as well as a Trustee of the AUE Solidarity Fund. 

Katriona Beales: We are here is commissioned by The White House as part of New Town Culture, a programme of artistic and cultural activity taking place in adult and children’s social care and curated by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Katriona Beales: We are here forms part of a broader programme that marks the centenary of the Becontree estate in 2021. This commission is funded by the GLA’s Young Londoners Fund, the MOPAC Violence Reduction Unit, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

About New Town Culture
New Town Culture is a programme of artistic and cultural activity taking place in adult and children’s social care across the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. We work with artists, social care staff and carers to develop creative ways to support systemic change in social care and to unlock the value of art and culture for all communities. New Town Culture celebrates the incredible stories, knowledge and skills of the residents of Barking and Dagenham through workshops, clubs, exhibitions, live performances and training for the staff and users of social care services. 

This ambitious project was piloted with the support of a Cultural Impact Award for the London Borough of Culture, a Mayor of London initiative, and is now extending its scope through further funding from the Young Londoners Fund, the GLA and the MOPAC Violence Reduction Unit.