Debut at Regent's Canal Festival

The Regent’s Canal Festival was a spectacular three-day festival last weekend which included more than one hundred artists, musicians and performers. It celebrated the two hundred year anniversary of the founding in 1812 of what became one of the busiest waterways in London.

At various points on the canal in Camden, King’s Cross, Little Venice, Angel, City Road Basin, Broadway Market and Mile End, the Festival featured loads of events including an opera of the canal’s history, a Guinness World Record attempt at sailing the largest origami Armada fleet (made out of 36,000 pieces of paper), a recreation of Venice complete with gondolas, and giant sculptures created out of waste fished from the depths of the canal. One of the main venues was the Art Pavilion in Mile End and showcased seventy artists, five of which were from Debut and one was shortlisted for the recent Art School Awards.

Yuliya Stephanel

Carne Griffiths

Lucy Howson

Earlier this week we met with Maria Teresa Spezzano, gallery assistant the Art Pavilion exhibition, curated by Kleber Ruiz. Spezzano was very excited to organise an exhibition at the Art Pavilion, which she found a building with great potential, excellent natural light and a wonderful natural environment right by Regent’s Canal, in the heart of Mile End Park “as an art curator, you feel really satisfied with that place.”

She gave various reasons why she chose the five artists from Debut Contemporary. She is locally based in Notting Hill, and was familiar with the gallery through earlier visits. “Debut Contemporary shows a great variety of emerging artists, and some of them are becoming very established. In the Art Pavilion I tried to establish an eclectic mix of mature and established artists combined with young and emerging artists. Debut therefore, fits perfectly into what I was creating in Mile End.”

Anu Samarüütel

Gillian Holding

Art School Awards BA3 shortlisted

artist Benjamin Burtenshaw