RA Burlington Gardens Festival
The RA takes to the streets for a vibrant, free arts festival
Saturday 2 July 2016 12 - 6pm
Burlington Gardens
Free.
RA Family Album
You are invited to our free summer street party, which takes inspiration from Royal Academician artist Yinka Shonibare MBE. From interactive art and creative workshops, to food, music and entertainment, the Festival will offer something for everyone.
Burlington Gardens will be pedestrianised for the day with activities filling the street in front of Yinka Shonibare’s monumental artwork ‘RA Family Album’ which wraps our building during construction. Looking both at the past and towards the future, the artwork showcases the RA as an inclusive, dynamic place for artists, creativity and learning.
Artists from the Royal Academy Schools, Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects residencies, and the Brazen Bunch Collective will host installations, performances and activities on the day.
Buy tickets here to our Artist Dining Room, where you’ll be treated to a three-course Nigerian-inspired menu while Doug Fishbone leads a series of lively discussion about Yinka Shonibare’s work.
Other highlights include:
Art installations and performances
Breezing through Closer, Fani Parali, RA Schools
Experience a one-to-one performance in a specially designed structure in the street, which contains a dream-like set that forms the backdrop of an intimate moment to be lived, felt and heard.
Tilt, Clara Jo, RA Schools Starr Fellow
A film installation that creates a contemporary parallel of an Enlightenment World, employing current museological digital imaging technologies as devices to penetrate the surface of scientific and artistic objects from the RA Collections and Archives, the Burlington Courtyard Learned Societies and the Imaging and Analysis Centre at the Natural History Museum.
Collective as Family
Alt MFA (Alternative Masters of Fine Art) will be looking at collectivity as family, with Alt MFA members collaborating with each other, their family members and looking at the connections between us.
Based on a mind-mapping exercise developed at Guest Projects, artists Sadie Edginton, Shinji Toya, Anousha Payne, Amy Leung, Johanna Bolton and Nathania Hartley will host a stall with different performative works spiralling off into the festival. Timed performances and happenings will lead you across the site to reimagine the space through participatory artworks.
Plus live art by Zilvinas Vaitiekunas from the Brazen Bunch Collective, created in response to Yinka Shonibare’s Family Album
Samba parade with i=u Join a lively parade led by i=u and the Artful Badger where samba dancers and musicians will lead you through the RA’s back-of-house spaces, at the end of the festival taking you to the RA’s Annenberg Courtyard where the bar will be open until 10pm.
Poetry performances
Poets Belinda Zhawi, Kareem Parkins-Brown and Victoria Anne Bulley will perform works in response to Yinka’s ‘RA Family Album’.
Workshops and activities
Fresh prints family portraits You Make Me collective lead this vibrant print and drawing family workshop, suitable for all ages. Be inspired by Yinka Shonibare’s use of Dutch wax fabrics and print patterns onto vintage garments, upcycling them into vivid costumes. Get dressed up and strike a pose in a multi-coloured family portrait capturing your new creations in drawings and photos.
Dutch wax fabric crafts with Dee Sheehan Join costume designer Dee Sheehan, who has collaborated with Yinka Shonibare on his textile pieces, at this drop-in workshop where you’ll be able to make your own headdress and necklace using traditional Dutch wax fabrics.
Print making with RA Schools Have a go at making your own poster at this workshop led by RA Schools students, using a design by Richie Moment titled The Disclaimer which looks at the structure of giving advice.
Drumming workshop with Henri Gao Bi Henri Gao Bi, master drummer from the Cote d’Ivoire, leads a series of participatory drumming performance workshops around the festival site.
Live music
Seven-piece band Matuki will perform live sets throughout the afternoon. Think afrobeat with a psychedelic edge.
Food and drink
Nigerian Tapas and cocktails by Charlton Nicoll, street food with Company of Cooks, smoothies from SuperNatural, ice cream with La Gelateria and craft beers with Orbit.
Burlington Gardens Festival 2015
Summer Nights
This season the RA is opening late on Fridays and Saturdays during the run of the Summer Exhibition.
Visit one of our shows at night, sample a cocktail from one of our many bars or simply soak up the evening ambience in our Courtyard.