Thu 21 May 2026, 6.30 - 8.30pm
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Access requirements
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
Information about access on site at the gallery is available here https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/
This includes information about Lift access; Borrowing wheelchairs & seating; Assistance Animals; Parking; Toilets and baby care facilities; Blind & Partially Sighted Visitors; Subtitles and transcripts; British Sign Language (BSL) and hearing induction loops; Deaf Messaging Service (DMS).
About This Event
This event takes place in the Mezzanine Studio at Whitechapel Gallery, located on the first floor, as well as across Galleries 1, 2, and 3.
This event will involve moving through the exhibition.
This event lasts approximately 2 hours. Attendees are encouraged to take as many breaks as they need during the event.
You must book a ticket to attend the event.
If the ticket price affects your attendance, please email tickets@whitechapelgallery.org to be added to the guest list (no questions asked, but dependent on availability).
This event is suitable for those over the age of 16
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event
We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
Transport
To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of the event.
Our nearest train station – Aldgate East Underground (1 min) is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are Whitechapel (15 min), Shoreditch High Street (15 min) or Liverpool Street (15 min).
Free parking for Blue Badge holders is available at the top of Osborn Street in the pay and display booths for an unlimited period. Spaces are available on a first come, first served basis.
Reframing language as a medium and material – as something to collect, gather, and speak aloud – join artist Ocean Baulcombe-Toppin for a participatory writing workshop, playfully examining the lines between words, rhythm, and performance.
Inspired by practices of collection and assemblage, participants will engage in a series of individual and collective readings, writings, and exercises, to explore the different rhythms and personalities of fragments of text, and what it means to consider language as a visual and memory making device.
Following initial language experiments, participants will move through Veronica Ryan’s Multiple Conversations, mapping words, gestures, and phrases that emerge in response. Speaking to ideas of memory, archives, traces, absence and solace, these individual fragments will be built into a joint text to be read and performed aloud, speaking to the exhibition sonically through a collective rhythm and tone.
All levels of experience are welcome. No prior experience of writing is required – just curiosity and a willingness to play with language.
This event accompanies our current exhibition Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations
Ocean Baulcombe-Toppin is an artist based in London. Her multidisciplinary practice centres slow praxis, considering connectivity and temporality through a lens of Afro-Caribbean diasporic identity and spiritual ecology. Via coded forms of communication, she works with installation, print, language, light, and nuanced interactions towards a kind of solace. Her aesthetic explorations extend to cultural research and communal exchange.
Recent presentations of her work include exhibitions, performative gestures and projects with Metroland Cultures, London (2025); Sainsbury Centre, Norwich (2025); iniva, London (2024–25); Cell Project Space, London (2024); Chapter, Cardiff (2024); NEVEN, London (2024); Somerset House, London (2022); and South London Gallery (2020). She was selected to participate in Syllabus VIII (2025–26), a peer-led alternative learning programme hosted by Wysing Arts Centre with partner organisations Eastside Projects, New Art Exchange, PS², Spike Island, Studio Voltaire, and Site Gallery.
