The Wicker Arms
ha.lf and the icing room
8 Aug 25 – 31 Aug 25
Inspired by a fascination with folk horror, curatorial platforms ha.lf and the icing room come together to transform the space at Staffordshire St into an artist-inspired pub and immersive exhibition.
OPENING EVENT: 7 August 2025 | 6 – 9pm
TICKETS: Free
VISIT: 8 - 31 August 2025 | Thurs - Sun | 10 – 6pm
If you are financially able, please consider donating, to keep Staffordshire St events accessible to all.
Exhibiting Artists: Milly Aburrow, Haydn Albrow, Henrietta Armstrong, Isobel Atacus, Hannah Bays, Camilla Bliss, Flora Bradwell, Emma Carlow, Charlie Chesterman, Boudicca Paloma, Laura Copsey, Denise Hickey, Paul Kindersley, Kenji Lim, Brighid Lowe, Lindsey Mendick, Eleanor McLean, Taryn O’Reilly, Heidi Pearce, Sophie Popper, Anna Sebastian, Jesse Warby.
Incorporating work from 20 artists, The Wicker Arms materially explores ideas around community, through which we refocus narratives of belonging. The suggestion of folk horror adds an edge to this narrative, where alternative realities creep to the surface, as a possible manifestation of a collective (un)conscious. Indeed, folk horror invites us to reimagine the pub, upend its more traditional associations, and reclaim it as a third space. If The Wicker Arms is haunted by The Wicker Man (dir. Robin Hardy, 1973), it also gestures towards wider craft practices, landscape, and folklore. The tension between a nostalgic past, and a troubling present, bubbles to the surface through the show.
Folk horror is difficult to define, but for us creates space for a suspended reality that disrupts the status quo. The exhibition re-contextualises the rural isolation of folk horror by bringing it into the urban landscape and pub environment, to allow space for more diverse voices to thrive. It investigates ways to site inside within outside, creating thresholds that must be crossed and re-crossed. Drawing on the history of the public house, we consider its status as a third space and claim it as the commons. Entering the pub there is the sense that eyes are peering at you from the walls, pub signs creak, creatures litter tables, jostling amongst more recognisable pub memorabilia. The outside area suggests a woodland shelter haunted by other ghostly presences. Still, everyone is welcome, until the bell is rung to call time.
This exhibition will be the centrepiece of our annual Festival of Community 2025: a collaborative programme of workshops, events, exhibitions and drop-ins that will celebrate our neighbourhood and the communities that fill its streets. Exploring notions of community, place and belonging, Staffordshire St will become a locus for playful creativity and celebratory knowledge sharing.
EVENTS:
OPENING | exhibition
Opening night of the Wicker Arms exhibition.
7 AUGUST 2025 | 6 – 9PM | FREE
Wicked Pub Monsters | family workshop
Join us create your own folklore-inspired animals or characters inspired by pub names, the exhibition and folklore.
9 AUGUST 2025 | 12 – 3.30PM | FREE
The Wicker Arms Pub Quiz
Welcome to The Wicker Arms Pub Quiz, where the best teams in the borough are invited to take part (or just bring your mates). Our bar will be open and our quizmaster will be at the ready.
12 AUGUST 2025 | 7 – 10PM | £2 PER TEAM
Peckham Life Drawing | workshop
A themed life drawing session inviting you to step into The Wicker Arms and draw experiences from a very special model who will share some of their embodied folk/horror practice in their poses.
13 AUGUST 2025 | 7 - 9PM | £12
STST Film Club x Carousel: After Hours | screening
Carousel: After Hours presents an evening of experimental film, readings and folk music by four contemporary artists.
14 AUGUST 2025 | 7 – 10PM | £12. CONCESSIONS £6
BISONNE: Heritage Prints with Bernice Mulenga | workshop
A cyanotype printing workshop where you will make prints reflecting your own heritage or personal story.
16 AUGUST 2025 | 2 - 4PM | £12. CONCESSIONS £6
STST Word Club x BISONNE: Re-Imagined Folk Tales | workshop
A writing workshop which re-imagines traditional folk tales from across the world to practice worldbuilding and create new stories.
20 AUGUST 2025 | 6.30 - 8.30PM | FREE
STST Word Club x Everything Sounds
A gathering of readings, music and conversation, centred around familial relationships, human relations with nature and the non-human, shelter(ing), bodies, and playfulness with language.
21 AUGUST 2025 | 7 - 10PM | £10. CONCESSIONS £6
Sonic Healing Immersion Therapy | workshop
An immersive experiential process that aims to interpret and amplify a participant’s thoughts, dreams or memories through improvised sound.
23 AUGUST 2025 | 4 - 7PM | FREE
Artists in Conversation | talk
An artist’s conversation with a folk horror twist, peeking behind the veil of works that inhabit The Wicker Arms, blending storytelling, object activation and engagement. Everyone welcome.
23 AUGUST 2025 | 7.30 - 8.30PM | FREE
Ceramic Whistle Making | workshop
Join artist Emma Carlow for a half-day ceramic workshop to make two whistles inspired by folk art bird whistles. Age range: 10+.
24 AUGUST 2025 | 10AM - 1PM | FREE - BOOKING ESSENTIAL
Beware of the Moon with Peckham Life Drawing | workshop
Peckham Life Drawing invites you to a folk/horror themed life drawing session where you can draw and/or pose within The Wicker Arms.
28 AUGUST 2025 | 7 - 9PM | £10
Festival of Community Summer Fayre | community day
Try your hand at welly wanging, get involved in a scavenger hunt, hear from the exhibition’s curators, and enter your vegetable sculptures into Folk Club’s Best in Show. Plus workshops and more! This is a family friendly, sober event.
30 AUGUST 2025 | 12 - 4PM | FREE
Festival of Community
The Way of the Roadwytch
Libby Bove
11 Sept 26 – 4 Oct 26
