People
Meet the Dockers: Joy Yamusangie
Joy Yamusangie is a visual artist whose work exists both within dream and reality, creating fictional characters and worlds that provide insight into the artist's real life. They experiment with a range of processes including drawing, film, painting and print making. In this Royal Docks Originals Meet the Dockers interview, Joy talks about latest project, Docks Open Art Series: The Fish and The Mermaid, a collaborative public artwork created with local communities for the Royal Docks. This project will form part of the legacy of Royal Docks Originals, a free arts festival taking place / that took place in the Royal Docks Autumn 2025.
Tell us about The Fish and The Mermaid
I wanted to create a piece that merged with the area it lives in and that feels linked to it’s history. The docks have a history of travel and migration, the image of mermaids and the stories of them that travel in water across the diaspora, I created a design that takes focus on this.
You’re running free workshops with the local community to create The Fish and The Mermaid. Can you explain the significance of using scales as a collaborative element?
Collaboration can be an exciting part of creating art, being able to make an image on your own is fun but there is so much more possibility when people come together. The scales individually will tell the story of a person but pieced together it shows an image that represents a community.
What materials or techniques are you planning to incorporate into the workshops?
The free workshops will centre on printmaking. For children the workshops will introduce them to mark making and producing prints in an accessible way and for adults the workshops will be an introduction into lino printing.
Collaboration can be an exciting part of creating art, being able to make an image on your own is fun but there is so much more possibility when people come together.
What will participants take away from being part of the creative process?
I hope it will spark an interest in print making and collective work. I think that print making can seem like a complicated process, but I hope the workshops show it can be a fun thing that can even be done at home.
How do you feel Royal Docks Originals can contribute to building a creative future locally?
Hopefully with more opportunities for the communities to shape the art and be involved with the art that sits in the area they live in.
What are you most looking forward to at Royal Docks Originals?
I’m really looking forward to seeing the creative outcomes from the workshops.
Sum up Royal Docks Originals in one word
Colourful
Join the Free Workshops for Docks Open Art Series: The Fish and The Mermaid
Joy Yamusangie is leading free community workshops to create The Fish and The Mermaid. The new public artwork is set to be installed in the Royal Docks this autumn. Whether you want to join a workshop or arrange one for your community group email RDO@RoyalDocks.London
