The last time I went to the Serpentine North, for the KAWS show in January, I felt gloomy about a prominent institution opening itself up to a deluge of terrible art. This time, I left the same venue feeling moved and uplifted. While Radio Ballads addresses a raft of difficult subjects head on – social care, domestic violence, social isolation, austerity, joblessness, systemic racism, illness and disability – it also affirms the transformative power of art.
The show is on view simultaneously at the Serpentine and the Barking Town Hall and Learning Centre in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD), and features four commissions. For the past three years, the artists Sonia Boyce, Helen Cammock, Rory Pilgrim and Ilona Sagar have been working with different communities and organisations in LBBD with the broad idea to explore stories of labour and care, in their many manifestations.
