Sound as Material

Leonie Rousham is an artist, she is part of a collaborative socially engaged practice called Kneed, as well as working across documentary, sound and archive. Using these as ways to collectivise experiences, memories and stories around labour, time and care, mobilised as tools to resist systems of oppression, exhaustion and isolation.  She runs arts workshops for young people in Lewisham, co-organised workshops for Anti-university and co-run a DIY radio station called Panic.FM, set-up to creatively respond to the Covid-19 Crisis during a time of isolation.

Kneed is a collaborative practice formed by artists Ishwari Bhalerao (b. Nagpur) and Leonie Rousham (b. London). Through film, performance, workshops, text and textiles, they explore and articulate responses to structural violence, hostile bureaucracy, collective histories and informal economies of care embedded within British landscapes and institutions. Their approach to making is socially engaged, informed by walking, conversations, planned and chance encounters and engagement with the communities in which they find themselves (care workers/educators/artists/migrants). Probing at the postures of domination within language and image production, they attempt to complicate power relations ingrained in looking, listening, making and documenting.They have previously exhibited at and worked with LADA DIY, Open City Documentary Festival, Deptford X, Artquest and more.

Kilburn Older Voices Exchange (KOVE) is a community action group of older people based around Kilburn and West Hampstead. KOVE works to improve the quality of life for older people and to combat social isolation by organising activities and campaigning on policies, with the aim of increasing the influence that older people have on local issues and decision makers.