Artist Kimberley Gundle has transformed her daily sketches of Londoners on the underground into a delicate collection of crockery. Each ceramic details her unmasked portraits sketched on the tube pre-Coronavirus. For Open House London, Kimberley will welcome visitors into her home-studio and garden to enjoy a High tea. Visitors will be sharing tables laid with these ‘Sketches on the Tube’ ceramics. The immersive ‘High Tea’ will celebrate communal conversation and a symbolic re-connecting of London lives, as together we enter into whatever the future might hold. Traditional tea, scones and other sweet and savoury treats will be served. By purposefully blending a supper-club aesthetic with this accessible participatory exhibition, Kimberley will include guests in her own ‘Stay-at-Home’ experience, in turn fashioning a collaborative experience of community.

Kimberley Gundle made London her home in 1988 after completing her postgraduate at the Slade. She fell in love with the vibrancy of the capital, and daily travel on the underground which connects the people of our city and its interlocking lives. Prior to lockdown Kimberley had been sketching daily on the London Underground, using these sketches to inform her ceramic sculptures inspired by Londoners. Now in this so-called ‘New Normal’ she has spent this stretch of time painting portraits on her hand-crafted ceramic plates and cups, inspired by those daily sketches on the tube. Through her art, she is creating an immersive space by and for Londoners in this time of isolation and disconnect.

In this time of uncertainty, it is hard to hold onto joy. It is hard to believe in the strength of the society that we live in, and harder still to imagine what tomorrow might bring. Yet against this backdrop of doubt, the philosophies of mutual aid, solidarity and kindness have become increasingly valued. Kimberley’s ‘high tea’ is evidence of this commitment to care between friends and strangers. She, like so many of us, has found lockdown intensely lonely and difficult. The space that she will bring guests into as part of Open House London is for anyone and everyone who has felt the need for connection. It is a space that lends itself to a reimagined society, one that not only struggles on through this virus, but rather one that emerges as a community.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to Toynbee Hall, the charitable institution founded by Dame Henrietta Barnett in 1884 to address the causes and impacts of poverty in the East End of London. Dame Henrietta Barnett lived at 1 South Square, London, where Kimberley now resides and where this event will be held.