Dogs, they all matter.   We started working with the excellent All Dogs Matter charity at the 2015 Art Car Boot Fair.  The 2015 Art Car Boot Fair theme was dogs, something that has been taking up quite a slice of Emma Harvey’s life since she rescued a rather distressed dog.

We invited All Dogs Matter to join us at the 2015 Brick Lane Art Car Boot fair and in turn they invited us to come join in their 2015 dog show in Victoria Park, East London.  We had a brilliant day dog watching, playing dog biscuit roulette, painting dogs, selling art and raising funds for All Dogs Matter.

One year on and we’re doing it all again. Once again Cultivate goes to the dogs, we shall be joining All Dogs Matter at the Victoria Park Dog Show, East London, this coming Sunday September 11th. We shall be in the park with a stall alive with art, some of it dog related, some of it dog-free but still fund-raising, along with a bag of dog biscuits and a roulette wheel.  Expect lots of other stalls, dog related I expect, as well as an actual dog show. Here’s a link to the Facebook event page for the whole thing….

HERE’S SOME WORDS WRITTEN JUST AFTER  LAST YEAR’S DOG SHOW…

Well we had a great time at the Victoria Park dog show yesterday.  The invitation to take part was a follow-up to our Cultivate collaborations (well mostly Emma Harvey’s collaborations) with All Dogs Matter for the dog-themed Brick Lane Art Car Boot Fair earlier this year.  Yesterday we spent the day in the sunshine with a gazebo, a table full of art, a bag of dog biscuits, some spray cans, some recycled cardboard, and some recent canvas paintings.  Good to get out of the art bubble and engage, and as brilliant as things like going to Margate or Liverpool or Folkestone with the Art Car Boot Fair is in terms of engaging and getting out of the gallery, it is still the art bubble.  Yesterday was brilliant, yesterday was fun, yesterday was engaging with people in a different bubble, loads of good conversations, loads of good chat about how “oh art galleries aren’t for me, I don’t get all that stuff”, lots of dogs, lots of smiles and “what is that really about, I just don’t get it?”.  Not for one second do we think art should be “dumbed down”, and yes, we love a white cube as much as anyone, but surely art really should engage now and again? Surely art should take a moment once in a while to reach beyond the various art crowds? The car park takeovers and the Chinese Opens and such are fine, surely it does sometimes need to reach beyond the insular feeling you get in those spaces though .  We enjoyed yesterday, dog biscuit roulette is fun, dogs always liked coming in through our open Vyner street corner door, we loved taken it to the dogs yesterday, all dogs, and indeed all people, matter.  (SW)

Victoria Park Dog Show (2015)