It is Good to Meet You

UCL Trellis 5: 2024 -25

It is Good to Meet You was one of five projects as part of UCL’s Trellis programme, now in it’s fifth edition. Trellis is a knowledge exchange programme bringing together UCL academics and researchers, with east London artists and community members to co-create new work. It’s Good to Meet You was a collaboration between y kinetic sculpture and puppet artist Tony Mason and researcher Dr Azadeh Shariati, who researches soft robotics and haptics. They worked with community members of the Carpenters Estate found on the edge of the Olympic Park, exploring how people from different backgrounds meet, greet, and bond. They created Chippie, a seven-foot puppet who responds when you shake their hand. Residents of Carpenters Estate have faced significant disruption and transformation since the Olympics came to east London, with more redevelopment still to come.

Chippie walked from Carpenters Estate to the Olympic Park, meeting and greeting people on the way, until they reached the UCL East campus building where the Trellis 5 exhibition ‘A Place of Our Making’, curated by Rachael Harlow, took place. I documented the walk for a film within the exhibition. With thanks to Adrian White for additional camera work and for surviving weather from hail to rain to sunshine!

Trellis was conceived by Sam Wilkinson, Head of Public Art at UCL, Lizzy Baddeley, former UCL East Community and Engagement Manager and Curator Rosie Murdoch. Trellis 5 is supported by Foundation for Future London’s Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, funded by Westfield Stratford City, and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Impact Acceleration Account funding.