CHALK DRAWING IN ESSEX

Wethersfield, June 26 - July 10, 2025

Starting life during Refugee Week with The Wave on either side of the English Channel where we used local chalk from the cliffs Folkestone Calais, these blackboard tablecloths have since made their way into our work in different settings. Here we focus on their use made by men housed in Wethersfield Asylum Centre, the large Home Office camp in rural Essex on a former RAF airbase.

Moving from inside the camp to a drop-in space in Braintree and back inside the camp, we have reflected on how accessible and engaging the black painted tablecloths and colourful chalks have been for men across cultures who have come to the tables. Even those who arrived saying they were not ‘good at drawing’ ending up absorbed in the intense colour and textures of this medium.

Last week, as we cleared away the postcards and drawing materials we were left looking down on a connected land/sky/seascape as if all our conversations had been turned to chalk dust but with the traces documented and held photographically. Yesterday each of the circular table settings were occupied in very personal ways, held collectively on the tablecloth by the boundaries of the individual circles. Two weeks ago, portraits were drawn, an expression of this is me, I can be seen here.

Words by Bobby Lloyd, Katie Miller, &Thomas Etheridge