Boots On The Ground, an exhibition of photographs depicting the first 20 years of the St Matthew’s Project (SMP), curated by Brixton-based artist Ellie Laycock, opens at Lambeth Archives on Friday 31 January.
The grass roots football outreach project began in Brockwell Park in 2004 as a kick-about for young people from the St Matthews Estate which is across the road from the new location of the archives on Brixton Hill.
Local people are invited to get involved and record their memories as part of the interactive exhibition.
Founded by Lee Dema, the St Matthew’s Project now regularly engages with more 200 young people in Lambeth each week, arranging trips, girls’ football, providing training, mental wellbeing workshops, and one-to-one support to the young people of Lambeth.
SMP’s summer holiday scheme in Brockwell Park provides free coaching and a free hot meal (when one might otherwise not be available).
SMP’s focus is on nurturing and developing football coaches who, in turn, help others thrive.
“A good leader is someone who creates other leaders,” says Lee Dema.
The SMP’s 20th anniversary will also be celebrated by a film premiere at the Ritzy on Thursday 6 February.
All images © Ellie Laycock. All Rights Reserved.
Ellie Laycock’s acclaimed series of portraits of St Matthew’s Project under-10s team players will also be on show at the archives. It was published in the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait Of Britain Vol. IV (Hoxton Mini Press) and previously exhibited in Lambeth town hall when she was artist in residence there.
The portraits form part of the series Spectemur Agendo, [the Latin motto on Lambeth borough’s coat of arms, meaning “let us be judged by our actions”] which explores leadership in Lambeth.
An artist’s book of the series is held in the Bodleian library in Oxford, and a copy is buried in a time capsule underneath the former Lambeth council offices, Olive Morris House, on Brixton Hill, now the home of Lambeth Archives.
The exhibition runs until Friday 21 February at
Lambeth Archives, 16 Brixton Hill, SW2 1ET
Opening Times:
- Monday: 1–8pm
- Tuesday & Thursday: 10am–6pm
- Wednesday & Sunday: Closed
- Friday: 10am–3pm
- Saturday: 9am–1pm and 2–5pm.
@LambethArchives
An award-winning artist, Ellie Laycock‘s photographic practice explores the urban environment and its impact on its residents, ideas of power and control, politics and the passage of time.
Her work often incorporates elements of historical research and sometimes, due to her original training as a fine art sculptor, 3D objects.
Ellie was recently nominated for the prestigious global Prix Pictet, awarded first place in Architecture by the New York Center For Photographic Art, and shortlisted for “Portrait Of Britain” by the British Journal Of Photography, also published as a book by Hoxton Mini Press.
Recent commissions include “Low Income Displacements”, a large-scale public billboard work in Brixton for Artworks Of Resistance/Save Nour and a commission and artist residency as selected artist for the Lambeth Town Hall Art Programme (Arts Council England/ Lambeth/ Photofusion/ 3Space).
Her solo show at Photofusion, “1500 Days of Gentrification”, paired photographs taken 1,500 days apart to show the hyper-gentrification taking place around her in Brixton.
Instagram: @ellie_laycock
Facebook: @EllieLaycockArtist
