The Hundred Club

Ruth Beale & TACO!

2021

The Hundred Club is an experimental creative space for children that uses arts and play to explore social justice issues.

Launch event for Waaaah! newspaper. Photo: TACO!

Led and facilitated by artist Ruth Beale, the club is for families with 7-11 year old children, and their siblings, parents and carers.

Members of the club are encouraged to play and experiment with all kinds of different arts and making activities - and use these processes to imagine a society that’s fairer and more just.

Club members take inspiration from the work of other artists, as well as the history and future of Lesnes Abbey Woods – from the prehistoric age when the land was at the bottom of the Blackheath Sea, to the Saxon ‘Hundred of Litlelai’, to today’s forestry and nature conservation work – to explore issues that affect all of us, including the climate crisis, the anti-war movement, race, disability, gender-based inequalities and civil liberties.

Ruth Beale is a London-based artist who works collectively and collaboratively, exploring the way culture, governance and social discourse create society. Her practice includes socially engaged processes, as well as drawing, performance, film and installations.

Recent projects include Library as Memorial, a book dedication project remembering Covid-19 victims with Brent 2020 Borough of Culture, The Free and the Unfree, a two-year commission with Mansions of the Future, Lincoln and incarcerated people at HMP Lincoln, and a Fungus Press public realm poster commission with Turf Projects, Croydon.

The Hundred Club is a project by artist Ruth Beale, commissioned by Three Rivers and London Borough of Bexley, and produced by TACO! in partnership with the Lesnes Abbey Lodge.