Exploring the intersection between psychogeography, spatial justice and ecology, we invite you to our sonic ritual of deep listening and speculative mapping.
Building hope into the bones of the city are a series of maps of a future London, where you will encounter new and re-framed institutions, social centres, symbiotic environments and time keeping technologies. Inspired by solar punk worldbuilding and folk futurism, the maps include and acknowledge the voices, stories and spaces of the non-human, ancestral pathways, shrines and house spirits, whispers from ruins, migration routes, shelters and sanctuaries. You will travel through them as you listen to a live soundscape of saxophone loops and poetic storytelling.
To open the portal to this future timeline, you will be invited at the beginning of the event to join a collective guided journey, where we will use divination and psychogeography prompts to connect, listen and leave offerings to the house. You may use movement, writing, drawing and resting to interpret the prompts - into your own rhythm and according to your desires and needs.
Building hope into the bones of the city invites you to dream architectures of awe, and public spaces collaborating with our creative longings, our sharpest grief and the needs of our deepest vulnerability.
The project is also composting the human supremacist and colonialist histories of cartography, where instead of mapping for domination and invasion, we map to reach deeper intimacy between our senses, our desires and the space around us.
We map to commune with the body of the land and its mythologies.
We map to trust in our daydreams.
Breakdown of the event:
2:50 - 3 pm: arrival
3 - 3:15 pm: introduction
3:15 - 4 pm: divination and psychogeography journey
4 pm - 4:15 pm: collective sharing & reflections
4:15 - 4:30 pm: break
4:30 - 5:30 pm: deep listening & live sound
5:30 - 6 pm: tea, visiting the exhibited maps, wrap up
This event is part of Antiuniversity festival:
Antiuniversity Now is a collaborative experiment to challenge institutionalised education, access to learning and the mechanism of knowledge creation and distribution.
Initiated in 2015, Antiuniversity Now was set up to reignite the 1968 Antiuniversity of London with the intention to challenge academic and class hierarchy and the exclusivity of the £9K-a-year-degree by inviting people to organise and share learning events in public spaces all over the country.
More information here:
Antiuniversity Submissions
Accessibility:
Not wheelchair accessible. Step up from street. Old building with uneven floor. Only stairs to higher floors. Home to a cat. Full accessibility details on website.
House of Annetta is a space for learning about the ways in which ownership of land shapes our lives and the world around us. 25 Princelet Street was the home of beekeeper, artist, activist and publisher Annetta Pedretti from 1980-2018. We are committed to continuing her work at the house through building repair, self-organised education, and cybernetic projects.
House of Annetta
About us:
**softshadow is a performance of live looping saxophone, spoken word, and wearable electronics. Using an array of guitar pedals, the saxophone is transformed into an ensemble of improvised energies.**
Byuka Makodru (they/them) is a trans artist, witch, dancer, movement director & poet.
They explore folk futurism and practices of queer-animist world building through performances, film, tattooing, community rituals & workshops.
Their work plays with ancestral healing, embodied ecologies, speculative fiction, divination & intimacy.
They co-curated an exhibition about queer future ancestry with Arts Council funding in collaboration with Mimosa House and Queer Circle in 2025. And they are the researcher, facilitator and curator of their project Lunarrr Playgroundz - a ritual healing space for the queer community, where creativity and spirituality intersect following the ancient technology of moon magic.
Their work has been shown at the Royal Albert Hall, Iklektik, Camden's People Theatre, the National Gallery, Matchstick Piehouse, Ugly Duck, The Barbican, Guildhall, BBC Sounds, Mimosa House, Queer Circle, House of Annetta.