Compressor House Warming: ARRIVED!

Arrivals + Departures is a renowned interactive public artwork by artist duo YARA + DAVINA, that - after 5 years of touring – has found its permanent home at the newly opened Compressor House in the Royal Docks, London. On Saturday 4 October there will be a celebration of the installation in its new home.

4-5:30pm: Stories of Arrivals and Departures

Pop-in anytime to meet artists YARA + DAVINA and hear a selection of moving stories that the public have submitted alongside names on the Arrival and Departure boards.

6-7pm: Panel Talk

YARA + DAVINA will be giving an artist talk with their arts producer Nicky Childs and Kate Anderson, head of Culture at the Royal Docks Team about the Arrivals + Departures artwork. Having opened 5 years ago at Somerset House, London during COVID, the work has since toured nationally and internationally. They will discuss how the work responded to different contexts and sites, and their hopes for the work now it is permanently back in London at the Royal Docks.

7:30pm-8:30pm: Concert with Reem Kelani

Following the talk, YARA + DAVINA have invited singer and educator Reem Kelani, who has long been the face of Palestinian music and culture in the UK and internationally. She will mark the opening of these boards by performing a reflective concert, singing songs of resilience.

MORE ABOUT REEM KELANI

Reem's debut album “Sprinting Gazelle” is included in the model music curriculum for schools in England and Wales. Reem has developed an extraordinary fusion of Arabic music and jazz, with her exceptionally talented and longtime artistic collaborator, Bruno Heinen, professor of jazz piano and composition at Trinity Laban. Together, they will perform a mixture of traditional songs from Palestine and the Arab world as well as her own settings of contemporary Palestinian poetry.

MORE ABOUT YARA + DAVINA

YARA + DAVINA make social practice artwork, creating ambitious public artworks that respond to site, context and audience.

Unfailingly inventive, they use formats from within popular culture to make works which are accessible and playful. Their issue based work is wide ranging from geo-politics to lessons on love, from knowledge production to mental health. Using formats such as Arrivals and Departures boards, football, tea, and lollipop ladies, they root their works in the everyday, using a lightness of touch and humour to make works that are both poetic and universal.

They’ve created artworks for multiple world leading art venues and public organisations such as Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Venice Biennale, BAM (New York), Somerset House, Manchester Art Gallery, Baltic, IKON, National Portrait Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Delfina Foundation, INIVA, Camden Council, Studio Museum Harlem, The Victoria & Albert, London, ZKM (Germany), HIAP (Helsinki), Kaunus Art Biennial (Lithuania), Modern Art Oxford, The RCA, Arnolfini, National Maritime Museum, and the ICA.