Welcome to our website. Please check back regularly for updates and news as we have lots of exciting projects in the pipeline!

The collective is made up of three individuals: Cara Nahaul, Emily Whitebread and Sally Mumby Croft who plan to participate in and curate a series of group shows around the four pillars of development policy – environmental balance, economic grown, social inclusion and cultural diversity.

Silent City is devoted to alternative interpretations of social issues. Our goal is to provide a new experience for contemplation and inquiry.

Please click on our profiles to find out more about our interests and other practices.

Goldsmiths University Graduate BA Fine Art and History of Art

Currently pursuing her artistic practice at her studio in Brixton

Since graduating in 2009, Cara has been involved in a number of projects. She worked as an assistant curator at the Red Gate Gallery, Brixton, helping organise several group shows and events.

Cara was selected for The National Open Art Competition 2009, chaired by Gavin Turk and Catherine Lampert (former director of Whitechapel Gallery) and received an award for her painting. She is now an ambassador for the competition.

Since travelling across Asia in 2008, Cara has continued to create a body of work that reflected her experiences. Her interests now lie in the marriage between art and science. Her most recent body of work are animal/insect hybrids. These imagined hybrids act as a canvas to subject our anxieties onto and allow the spectator to consider new forms of existence and as such, become a potent metaphor for the perceived threat of the outsider.

Currently studying MFA Art Writing at Goldsmiths

Goldsmiths University Graduate BA Fine Art and History of Art

Emily has a varied practice: as an artist, writer and curator. She recently curated X Presents...Heart of Dixie UK in Romford, providing recent graduates with a free space in which to exhibit their work.

She also designed and was a participant in the publication Tracing the Borders: A Collective Reaction from Emerging European Artists to their Contemporary Cultural Environments.

This publication was produced by Sarah Walters for Manufacturing Today at the Trondheim Bi-Annual. It is a collaboration between recent graduates from art schools in London, Vilnius, Trondheim, Copenhagen, and Helsinki, allowing the participants to compare the environments they work in and share common.

Her art practice uses a sci-fi perceptive to investigate how technology has impacted on Spaceship Earth. It discusses how progression can be cultivated and used for the better. Her work leaves the option for her audience to choose Utopia or Oblivion; a message that there is still time for change.

Goldsmiths University Graduate BA Fine Art and History of Art

Currently working with this is tomorrow, an online art magazine that focuses on innovative projects, challenging the existing norms or formats of artistic thinking. This is tomorrow displays an edited selection of international contemporary art exhibitions and projects.

Sally works with film and audio, concentrating on the idea of narrative and presence of voice, leaning towards to the tradition of radio documentary - faces and bodies are absent alongside markers of whom each speaker is, enabling the voice the chance to craft it's tale.

Recently she assisted with a project titled Mauerpark with Francesca Weber Newth. Mauerpark examines the importance of urban free space, examining the impact of this space on the residents of the area.

Previously to assisting with Silent City, Sally co-curated Circuit Wisely and is currently in the process of setting up The Copper Penny.

She also recently completed a project organised by Sarah Walters with the Trondheim Bi-Annual where a selection of international students participated in a discussion on the subject of art education and the structure of the art world examining similarities and differences between European Countries.

Silent City part 1:

A symposium that addresses the issue of climate change with a particular focus on its impact on the Third World. A reaction against exhibitions such as ‘Earth: Art of a Changing World’ hosted by the RA which tend to present a classless vision of ecological justice made in the West, prioritising the needs of the developed nations over all others, it will comprise a line-up of interdisciplinary programmes, which together will explore climate change as an environmental crisis that requires a development solution.

There is a growing need to address the global geopolitics of environmentalism. Typically, climate change events have failed to address these issues that concern both the global south and post industrial nations. In light of this, many people have become apathetic and disillusioned about the prospects for change.

Silent City demonstrates that climate change is no longer a scientific debate or a protest march but a pervasive aspect of all of our lives; aiming to provide a different experience to explore these serious issues.

OPEN 11AM - 6PM EVERYDAY

THE RAG FACTORY, HENEAGE STREET, E1 5LJ

PRIVATE VIEW: 7TH MAY 6PM ONWARDS

SPECIAL EVENT: 9TH MAY 4PM ONWARDS

JUST DO IT: GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND CHANGE THE WORLD 4PM An exciting preview of clips from a new documentary that follows the often heroic deeds of UK climate activists + Q&A with the director Emily James.

FILM SCREENING 6PM A selection of documentaries about climate change

Nattura // featuring interviews with Bjork and music by Sigur Ros, this documentary presents the desire for a renewal in discussion and debate on Icelandic resources

Drowning by Carbon // from the perspective of individuals and communities who are already facing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh

Mauerpark // a short documentary which explores the importance of urban space and the threat of building development in Mauerpark, a former no mans land which separated Berlin for 17 years

Earth

By Emily Whitebread

People liked the idea of modernity, of the progression of technology, moving us, the human race, into the future. Since the beginning of civilization humanity has battled one against another. With the boom of the industrial revolution came improvements in weaponry, education, political awareness and social welfare. It was also a time when technology began to move at an accelerated pace, the switch from manpower (slavery, cheap outsourced workforces) to chemical power (fossil fuels). The people of developed Earth began to live longer and thus more housing was needed for the ever-increasing population. Humanity now found a new way to gorge itself.

Stronger countries, those who seemed to be moving faster in the progression of humanity, began to invade other countries. Religious differences fuelled conflicts. Politicians involved themselves in the politics of other countries. With this involvement came promises of salvation, social improvement and peace. More energy was needed to produce weapons to make the occupied behave.

As the rich began to move forward in their mission for the contemporary, they used more coal, gas and water to heat their houses. More factories were needed to clothe them; oil was needed to run transportation vehicles; cost effective livestock was produced; crops were imported and grown artificially; fish were farmed, as the seas emptied.

No mention has been made of the weather. The seasons began to change. No longer was spring spring, summer summer, autumn autumn and winter winter. Temperatures plummeted and rose. Rain became frequent and infrequent. Snow and ice became more common. The ice and snow began to melt causing oceans to grow in size. Water sources such as rivers and streams began to dry up.

This then is now the existence of the poorest human who lives on a rubbish tip, who starves and freezes. Their own waste does not create these rubbish tips. This rubbish, that they call home, was once possessions of the rich. Now discarded by those who embraced progress and forgot the old way of living.

We cannot recall a time when the Earth was happy. In our anamnesis we only see news reports of troubles in countries that no longer exist; of farmers struggling with diseases and fertilizers; factory chickens with stunted legs; homegrown terrorists; tensions between countries over weapon developments; climate change; slave labor; make poverty history and embrace your poverty.

You remember it differently. You remember how wonderful life was. Consuming all that the high street fashion boutiques had to offer. Drinking out of the corporate coffee cup. Purchasing the latest communication device in the electrical stores. Looking at the wonderful glass buildings, standing tall. Your silver taps with a constant supply of scalding, hot water and supermarkets open 24 hours a day for you to purchase whatever you desired.

Perhaps you think we have presented this as an absurd piece of fiction?

But this is a story about a planet called Earth, who wears a gas mask. It is the only way it can breathe. This mask is needed to maintain the millions who inhabit it. But is there any point in maintaining something that is broken? Have we become too toxic through greed and want? Those who have nothing are left to rot, just like the straps of the mask surrounding the Earth. One day the straps will break, rotted away by radiation, gas and toxins. It will be too late for planet Earth.

*Written in angry response to the GSK Contemporary Earth: Art of a changing world show at the Royal Academy 2009.

Review of Silent City /// Amelia's Magazine /// May 2010

Just Do It screening preview and Q + A with Emily James review

Review of Mauerpark screening

Nattura /// 2008 Dir. Charlie Lightening and Ben Tubby

This documentary presents the desire for a renewal in discussion and debate on Icelandic resources; a desire for bridges between different spheres of knowledge and productive ideas on self sustainable evolution, distancing itself from heavy industry

Bjork 'Náttúra' (Trailer) from Tubby Brother on Vimeo.

Mauerpark /// 2010 Dir. Francesca Weber Neuth

Mauerpark ['Wall Park'] lies on the former no man's land that separated Berlin for 17 years. This short film ask individuals why the park is such an important urban space, questioning why building development along the periphery of the park would be detrimental to social relations in the neighbourhood

Mauerpark Berlin - Ein Kurzfilm (Mauerpark Documentary Trailer) from sally mumby-croft on Vimeo.

Drowning by Carbon /// 2009 Dir. Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell

With one of the lowest per capita levels of energy consumption in the world, Bangladesh is a major point of reference for the injustice of climate change. Drowning by Carbon will destroy the myth that climate change is something that will happen in the future and will illustrate the importance of international coordinated action to deal with the problem

Drowning by Carbon (trailer) from Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell on Vimeo.