Ed Webb-Ingall – A Bedroom for Everyone

In February 2024 Peer presents a new exhibition of animation and print works by filmmaker and researcher, Ed Webb-Ingall. Working with archival materials and methodologies drawn from community video, Webb-Ingall collaborates with groups to explore under-represented historical moments and their relationship to contemporary life, developing modes of self-representation specific to the subject or the experiences of the participants.

For his exhibition at Peer, Webb-Ingall presents A Bedroom for Everyone, an exhibition comprising a newly commissioned animation stemming from a long-term body of work that asks what the role of filmmaking is in response to the current housing crisis in the UK. The project explores the power of grassroots activism and organising in the face of this ongoing emergency, while making space for the camaraderie that unfolds in the community centres and meeting halls where this work takes place.

Following time spent with housing and migrant-support groups from Glasgow, Nottingham, Liverpool, Birmingham and London, Webb-Ingall has collaborated with members of these groups to co-write the script for this new animation, illustrated by lead artist Sofia Niazi and animated by Astrid Goldsmith. For his presentation at Peer, Webb-Ingall has developed a newly commissioned series of posters that act as both an archive and timeline. Drawing attention to the artist's research into the development of the animation, the posters reference work from 1972 to the present day, and include Leeds Animation Workshop’s 1987 short animation Home and Dry, which A Bedroom for Everyone acts as a sequel to, of sorts.

The animation and exhibition’s title A Bedroom for Everyone, came out of a list of demands made during a series of creative workshops commissioned by Serpentine Education, with The Portman Early Childhood Centre, London, and the housing charity, Shelter. Over the course of a year, families who were experiencing the impacts of changes in housing policy met online to share their experiences and think about how people could live together differently. Alongside the need to provide a bedroom for everyone, the list included: community-led decision making; communal gardens; a safe, stable, warm, clean, bright place to live; a job club; a youth club; and childcare.

A series of talks, events and workshops has been programmed in collaboration with Webb-Ingall and run throughout his exhibition. Webb-Ingall’s exhibition is part of Peer’s 2024 Programme, which also includes new commissions and exhibitions by artists Meera Shakti Osborne and Onyeka Igwe.