Where London goes to learn: Meet City Lit

We are super excited to announce City Lit as our Programme Partner for the Battersea Spring Collection. City Lit will be combining art and mindfulness, ‘artfulness’ if you will, in their packed programme including introductions to mindful photography – encouraging busy snappers to take stock and appreciate the thousands of images they capture – as well as papercutting and experimental drawing workshops.

Get the low down on their fascinating work with Special Projects Coordinator, Katharine Hough.

What does City Lit do as an adult education centre?

City Lit is where London learns. It’s the capital’s ultimate destination for inspiring evening, daytime and weekend courses for adults. Each year we offer thousands of part-time short courses, from one-off sessions to year-long programmes, so choosing a course to fit around your busy life is easy.

What kind of art courses do you offer?

City Lit Art & Design offers a diverse range of courses taught by successful artists and practitioners. They include some of the most popular subjects from photography, fashion and textiles, drawing and painting, print, ceramics, graphic design, interior design and garden design courses, to name a handful!

Do you offer courses with a focus on art and wellbeing?

Education is important for your general health and wellbeing, learning new skills and exploring different pathways. Here at City Lit we know art plays a direct role in this, it is therapeutic, relaxing and can be an escape. Taking up an art course, learning something new and exploring the pathways it opens up to you can be incredibly rewarding. In your learning and projects you are given guidelines by your tutor, yet how you get there and what avenues within yourself you explore is a personal journey. Art helps you switch off from other issues that may be around you and is incredibly beneficial for your wellbeing.

What do these courses involve and what are the benefits?

We have art courses which focus directly on connecting wellbeing with study, being aware of your work and thought process. Our mindful photography course gets you to stop and look at your surroundings, to stop just snapping away taking hundreds of photos and become aware of your place and what you capture. Looking at art can open up an understanding of yourself and the world around you, it is enriching and empowering.

Do people need to have any previous art knowledge or experience to attend?

To do a course here at City Lit you could be a complete beginner or a practising artist. You may want to top up on a particular area of the arts that you have not studied since leaving school. Or you may want to change career paths or take up a hobby, no matter the reason or level of experience we will have something here for you at City Lit.

What kind of workshops can we expect at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea this Spring?

We are really excited to be the Programme Partner for the Affordable Art Fair this Spring. We have put on a few taster sessions to give you an idea of the broad range of subjects we offer here at City Lit. On the day, come along to explore your creativity and fire up your imagination with some quick sketches or develop ways of seeing and improving your confidence with your photography skills. If you fancy being more hands on, come and try our paper cuts taster, experimenting with ideas through structure of paper, or sit back and hear how to start your own art collection with our sofa session on the Saturday.

Want to try out some of our City Lit workshops and explore the connection between art and wellbeing? Book your tickets for the Battersea Spring Collection here »

Image captions top to bottom:
NYC Graffiti Wall by Malcolm Haynes.
Nude by a City Lit course student. Mixed media collage.
Morphogenesis by Naomi Luland.