A LOCK IS A GATE

A LOCK IS A GATE was devised and led by artist Ruth Ewan with composer Kerry Andrew and poet Evlynn Sharp and created by young people from the Laburnum Boat Club youth project, Hackney.
Nearly 40 members of the Club aged 9 to 19 years old took part in creating an album of experimental songs, album artwork in the form of a book of drawings, posters for the Central line and an artwork for Bethnal Green Underground station that was installed next to the station escalators. All the voices, words and drawings are the participants’ own.

A LOCK IS A GATE weaves sounds, songs and drawings into a part-real, part imagined journey that winds through London from the Tube to the canal. Along the way the young voyagers pass through a long canal tunnel and negotiate a lock. From their narrowboat they see puzzling sights and dazzling colours. They make songs telling of who they are and how they think others see them, and share their hopes and dreams for a better world in which to grow up.

A lock on a canal is a watergate that requires special knowledge to unlock. But once open, it lets a boat pass along different levels of water. In that way, a lock is both a barrier and a way through. In the title song, the lock stands both for a real canal lock and for the obstacles we all face in life.

Laburnum Boat Club in Hackney is a social education facility, concerned with the development of children and young people of all abilities, primarily through water-sport activities.

About the artist
Ruth Ewan (b.1980) lives and works in London. Ewan’s work takes many forms including performance, installation and printed matter. Her practice explores overlooked areas of political and social history, reviving these forgotten thoughts and ideas and highlighting their continued relevance today.

Often celebrating activists and radical thinkers, Ewan’s work encourages collaboration and participation – in the past she has worked with historians, traditional craftsmen, musicians and school children. One of her best-known works A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World (2003 – ongoing), invites visitors to the gallery to choose tracks from its growing catalogue of over 2,200 politically motivated songs.

In 2011, Ewan had her first major UK solo exhibition Brank & Heckle at DCA, Dundee and was a contributor to the Folkestone Triennial. Ewan exhibited in Altermodern: Tate Triennial (2009) and was one of fifty international artists selected for the Younger than Jesus exhibition at the New Museum, New York (2009).

Commissioned by Art on the Underground in collaboration with Laburnum Boat Club