
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.