Lu Williams

Southend Is Not A Shithole (2021) Plaster, paint, paper metal and magnets

Magnet display stand and zine’s. This work investigates how culture is solidified in history through narratives of place and nostalgia. The zines and magnets explore how slogans and signifiers of place build a culture and shape the ways we see spaces in our imaginations as well as class taste and collecting. What art objects make it into the home? What objects do we tie our own stories to? Whilst reflecting on who are the gatekeepers of taste are.

Self Starter (2021) Metal chains and spray paint

Self Starter was a greyhound who won the first race at Southend Greyhound Racing Stadium, now the Greyhound Retail Park in 1927. Lu’s work references the former Southend betting shop Bookmakers’s windows, depicting betting sports on chains. This piece pulls together former working class histories of play, leisure and gentrification of the area.

Lu Williams creates cross disciplinary artworks, events and printed matter with a focus on do-it-yourself culture, process, social practice, activism, intersectional feminism and class. For the last five years, Lu Williams has been creating, self-publishing, platforming and archiving zines as Grrrl Zine Fair through live events, zine workshops, Grrrl In Print zine and a LGBTQIA+ feminist library- the Grrrl Zine Library; which now resides at The Old Waterworks arts space in Southend-on-sea.

info@luwilliams.com | @luwilliamsdotcom | www.luwilliams.com | www.grrrlzinefair.com | @grrrlzinefair