City Matters 130

CITYMATTERS.LONDON 16 June - 13 July 2021 | Page 13
ARTS & CULTURE
SPONSORED
DESTINATION CITY
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CHEAPSIDE BUSINESS ALLIANCE,
ALDGATE CONNECT BID, EC PARTNERSHIP & FLEET STREET QUARTER
THERE are stacks of things
happening around the City
this month, as more and more
workers return to the office.
Explore the streets in
Cheapside and Aldgate as well
as the Eastern City and areas around Fleet
Street. The Square Mile has finally awoken.
Now hurry up and take part in all the
excitement!
This month in Aldgate
EXHIBITION / Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy
This art exhibit continues at the Whitechapel
Gallery. Whether dancing on the rooftops
in Paris, sharing ideas with Pablo Picasso,
or gathering starfish on the beaches of
Cornwall, Eileen Agar transformed the
everyday into the extraordinary.
Her unique style nimbly spanned painting,
collage, photography and sculpture, even
ceremonial hats.
Combining order and chaos, Agar’s work
fuses vivid abstraction with imagery from
classical art, the natural world, and sexual
pleasure. This definitive retrospective charts
her ground-breaking career from the 1920s
to the 1990s.
Until 29 August, tickets £9.50
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel
High Street E1 7QX
whitechapelgallery.org
This month in Fleet Street Quarter
NEW BAR OPENING / Fleets London
A vibrant new cocktail bar, ‘Fleets London’
has opened in the shadow of St Paul’s
Cathedral on Ludgate Hill.
Open from late morning to late evening,
it’s a great new destination in the Fleet
Street Quarter perfect for all occasions -
especially if you’re looking for a great spot
to watch the EUROS 2020.
44-46 Ludgate Hill EC4M 7DE
fleetslondon.com
This month in Cheapside
EXHIBITION / Noel Coward: Art & Style
The City of London’s Guildhall Art Gallery
is opening back up to the public, kicking
things off with the latest exhibition, Noël
Coward: Art & Style.
The free exhibition, originally scheduled
to open in summer 2020 to mark the 100th
anniversary of Coward’s West End debut
LFA BENCHES: Monuments to Mingling by Sohanna Srinivasan. Photo by Agnese Sanvito.
as a playwright, brings a wealth of dazzling
visuals and effervescent wit to London as
the capital emerges from lockdown.
Until 23 December, free
Guildhall Art Gallery EC2V 5AE
This month in EC Partnership
ART INSTALLATIONS / God’s Own
Junkyard in Leadenhall Market
A collaboration between Gods Own
Junkyard and Leadenhall Market sees
‘Electric City’ light up the historic
marketplace.
Designed to inject a blaze of colour
and joy back into the capital, the Victorian
covered market will collaborate with Gods
Own Junkyard on Electric City, an immersive
technicolour production involving
multiple units and installations.
Until 30 July, free
Leadenhall Market EC3V 1LT
leadenhallmarket.co.uk
This month across the Square Mile
UAL STUDENTS TAKE OVER VACANT
SHOP UNITS ACROSS THE CITY
An innovative partnership between
businesses in the Square Mile and the
renowned arts school, UAL Wimbledon
Arts College, will see this year’s Graduate
Showcase ‘take over’ a number of empty
retail units.
Starting later this month (21 June)
students from the Performance Arts course
will have their final degree pieces exhibited
in sites across the City of London, in the EC
Partnership’s tower cluster area and also
across Cheapside.
The project activates some of the central
London spaces now vacant as a result of
the COVID pandemic and its impact on
retail and hospitality, providing an attractive
welcome for visitors and workers as they
start to return to London.
It also gives the students a high-profile
and easily accessible platform to showcase
their skills and expertise. The COVID
restrictions have limited the ability for the
students to exhibit at the college both last
year and this year.
The project was developed by the
Cheapside Business Alliance and the EC
Partnership – business collectives working
to enhance their local areas and drive local
economic growth.
LFA BENCHES UNVEILED IN CHEAPSIDE
AND ALDGATE
Nine new public benches have been
unveiled in Cheapside and for the first
time, Aldgate, to mark the 2021 edition of
the London Festival of Architecture’s City
Benches competition with Cheapside
Business Alliance and Aldgate Connect BID.
Designed by an emerging group of international
and interdisciplinary architects and
designers, these new benches will enliven
the public realm across the City with their
bold and imaginative designs, as London
begins to welcome visitors, commuters and
locals back to its streets this summer.
This year’s collection of benches offers
a fresh new take on bringing people back
together post pandemic, providing a safe
and inviting environment for people to
meet again and enjoy the capital with a
creative approach to the festival’s 2021
theme of care.
The designs hope to start a conversation
on how we can better care for another
and our built environment, from telling the
forgotten stories of the local area through
local landmarks and materials to supporting
wellbeing by encouraging interaction and
tackling sustainability by challenging views
on littering and introducing more planting.
WHITECHAPEL GALLERY: Eileen Agar’s retrospective.
In addition to providing much-needed
seating, the benches also encourage
passers-by to pause, rest and once again
make the most of the City.
NEW CITY GIFT CARD
Since the launch of the City Gift Card at the
end of 2020, the scheme has continued to
develop and grow steadily. There are now
around 80 businesses signed up from the
retail, hospitality and leisure sectors across
the City, where the gift card can be used,
and this number continues to increase
week by week.
There are currently around 2,000 cards in
circulation, totalling up to a value just under
£50,000, which will be spent back into the
local economy. As the City continues to
open up and we start to see visitors and
workers returning to the Square Mile, the
City Gift Card makes a great companion.
Are you a business wanting to reward
your staff members? Are you stuck for gift
ideas for your friends and family? The City
Gift Card is your perfect solution. With
participating businesses ranging from
restaurants to bars, from retailers to leisure
activities, from hotels to service providers,
the City Gift Card has it all.
The City Gift Card has been created by
the City of London Corporation, Aldgate
Connect BID, Cheapside Business Alliance,
Fleet Street Quarter and the EC Partnership.
It has been implemented to help and
support local businesses within the City of
London and to promote local spending.
Support the places we all know and love
and purchase a City Gift Card today.
townandcitygiftcards.com
LEADENHALL: God’s Own Junkyard