Between the winter solstice of 2019 and the winter solstice of 2020, a series of monthly performances, activations, and gatherings took place along the banks of the River Thames near Limehouse and Canary Wharf. Initiated by Anne Bean and a small group of artists, the project grew to involve over 100 participants. Together, they transformed the foreshore into a “pocket of resistance” — a space that existed between water and land, public and private, wealth and poverty, the past and present, and an unknowable future.

Held once a month at low tide, when the foreshore briefly emerged, these events offered a way to reconnect with natural rhythms and cosmic time during a year shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and repeated lockdowns. Set against the backdrop of Canary Wharf, the gatherings opened up space for other ways of being through collective presence and ephemeral acts.

Join us for an evening with Anne Bean as she revisits this year-long project and reflects on the idea of “arclive” — a process of continuous activation and “arcing” across time and space.

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Anne Bean is a London-based artist working with sculpture, installation, sound, photography, painting and drawing, whose artistic practice has been pivotal in the development of live and performance art in the UK. Captivated by process and collaboration Bean works as the ‘space-between’ - a receiver, receptor, and conjuror. These strategies enable her to plug into time and timelessness. Since 1970 Anne Bean has presented solo and collaborative projects, worldwide. She recently received the 2024 Paul Hamlyn Foundation Visual Arts Award.

This event is curated by Tan Wang-Ward, artist-in-residence at Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, as part of her ongoing research into how archival materials can be used to creatively challenge contemporary processes of homogenisation and to create subtle expressions that hold space for alternative futures.

Image: The Neo-Naturists, Winter Solstice, 2019. From the Come Hell or High Water series. Photo by Anne Bean

"Come Hell or High Water”: Looking Back to the Future with Anne Bean