About the artist
Rory Pilgrim is a multidisciplinary artist working across song writing, composition, films, texts, drawings, paintings and live performances. Pilgrim aims to challenge the nature of how we come together, speak, listen and strive for social change through sharing and voicing personal experience.
Pilgrim was nominated for the commission RAFTS at Serpentine and Barking Town Hall, and a live performance of the work at Cadogan Hall, London. The RAFTS film presented at Towner is a seven-song oratorio narrated by eight residents of Barking and Dagenham from Green Shoes Arts, reflecting on what the symbol of a raft means to them through song, music and poetry. They are joined by singers Declan Rowe John, Robyn Haddon, Kayden Fearon and members of Barking and Dagenham Youth Dance. RAFTS was made during the Covid-19 pandemic, in this work Pilgrim positions the raft as a symbol of support keeping us afloat in challenging and precarious circumstances. Timed screenings of RAFTS and RAFTS: Live are presented alongside paintings, drawings and sculptures that expand this theme.
Screening times
10:15am RAFTS
11:45am RAFTS
01:00pm RAFTS
02:15pm RAFTS
03:30pm RAFTS: Live
Related Events
In this film by Tate, artist and composer Rory Pilgrim meets with the eight members of Green Shoes Arts who collaborated on 'RAFTS', a film and later live performance created over three years during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rory Pilgrim, RAFTS Production still, 2021. Photo: Matthew Ritson.
Rory Pilgrim, RAFTS (HD Video Still), 2022. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © Rory Pilgrim.
Rory Pilgrim, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.