TimeOut

With performances and exhibitions in venues dotted around Shoreditch, ‘Concrete and Glass’ celebrates an array of emerging talent. Time Out sees what happens when the worlds of art and music collude.

The creative East End may be gradually migrating further east, but it doesn’t take more than a quick search through Time Out’s listings to see that Shoreditch is still the place to tap into London’s emerging art and music scenes. So if you’re planning a creative showcase of both, it makes sense to locate it in Shoreditch. Cue the inaugural Concrete and Glass festival, a ticketed, two-day event with bands, exhibitions and performances, taking place in venues throughout the area, which will allow the audience to move from gallery to gig and sample what both worlds have to offer. The art programme features more than 20 newly commissioned exhibitions and events (many continuing after the festival); here are the highlights:

Heart of Glass
Thirty artists selected from open submission show previously unseen work in all media, in the dark and cavernous, bare-brick basement space of Shoreditch Town Hall. Among the suitably atmospheric offerings are Alistair McClymont’s indoor tornado of water vapour, Paul Archard’s horsebox occupied by audibly agitated stallions, Rosie Leventon’s ‘Welcome’ doormat made from human hair and Martin Sexton’s ‘The Levitation of John the Baptist’ (pictured). If it feels a little dusty in the subterranean labyrinth of rooms, spare a thought for artist Amanda Couch, whose durational performance, ‘Dust Falling’ (October 2 & 3 only), will involve her lying for several hours under a giant dust-filled sieve as its contents gradually fall on to her body.
Shoreditch Town Hall basement, 380 Old St, EC1. October 2-19.