Chris Brown (with Natalie Low)- Flight Exhibition

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

Chris Brown

Today we feature Collect Connect stalwart Chris Brown. Chris' mini sculpture hangs from a metal chain with its own legend and a Moment Mori nestled under an astronaut. Perhaps a reminder of the dangers of flights of fancy or of the necessity of flight in the face of real danger.

The words for Chris' sculpture are provided by long time and much loved Collect Connect contributor Natalie Low.

FRANZ REICHELT

Pre-soar, one thing -

Do you ever know?

That plumb line could

Signal up or down.

We think we fly

Till we hit the ground.

In dreams afloat,

I paddle through air,

And wake to see

You there on the brink.

Doubt hides on the

Dark side of your face.

Do you recall

When you glance behind?

Chris Brown is an artist, art therapist, publisher, educator and editor. He lives high up in the sky on the edge of the City of London.

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family.  

Flight exhibition - Pink Tardis Gallery, Dagenham Heathway

 

CollectConnect artists are exhibiting a selection of mobiles at the Pink Tardis Community Gallery in Dagenham Heathway during March and April 2026. The theme, Flight, reflects Dagenham's history of early aviation. In the early 1900s the Royal Aeronautical Society established a test facility for prototypes and experimental flying machines near Dagenham Dock. Several machines were built at Dagenham, including a quadruplane designed by Baden Baden-Powell, brother of Robert, the scouting founder.

In recent years Dagenham has become one of the most diverse boroughs in London, with more than 70 different languages spoken within its boundaries. This flourishing diversity is a result of increased migration over the past two decades. It is an excellent representation of CollectConnect artists who draw upon their rich and varied experiences, backgrounds, cultures and nationalities to display their work here during March and April 2026.

The mobiles hang in the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. Open Monday to Saturday 8:30am – 8:00pm and Sunday 10:00am – 4:00pm. 

Artists include Francesca Albini, Eskild Beck, Dean Reddick, Alban Low, Bryan Benge, Oscar Newcombe, Melanie Honebone, Stella Tripp, Chris Brown, Alison Stirling and Natalie Low.

During March and April we will be publishing written responses inspired by the artwork here on the website and on Facebook. This includes creative writing from Dom O'Reilly, Bella Weerasinghe, Katerina Koulouri, Simon Tyrrell, Keziah Reddick, Natalie Low, Ed Arantus, Jack Low, Diya Sengupta, Dean Reddick, and Ginny Reddick.

Stella Tripp

A special thank you to Katja Rosenberg of Art Catcher for giving us this opportunity.

Katja Rosenberg, Alban Low and Dean Reddick

Chris Brown 1 (with Kim Reddick) - Sets, Series and Ensembles

Chris Brown

Welcome to Sets, Series and Ensembles, an exhibition of art in public places. Accompanying each public art placement is a 'First Response' for you to read here on the website. As artists and writers we are constantly collecting ideas, objects, themes, and sentiments. We are often searching for the connections and narratives that help us understand both our lives and our art. 

It's our penultimate day on the Sets, Series and Ensembles exhibition and it's a familiar face who is back, full of originality and thought provoking art. Chris Brown's artefact looks like it has been liberated from the British Museum, but we find it on a small bridge over a culvert. It's the third of Chris Brown's work for the exhibition and each time a new writer has responded. Today it's the turn of Kim Reddick, who last joined us for the Sentinel Trees exhibition in 2020. Read his response below.

Chris Brown

Pitted iron who holds to history,

Twisted and dulled, beyond its use

It sits on display, held gently

Elevated,

Curated,

Fragile.

It asks of the stands,

"Why am I here, to be held aloft,

I have long since lost my purpose,

My edge is dull, my end blunt,

My metal rusted and thin."

The stands reply,

"We lift you up,

We keep you safe,

Because we can,

Because you were

Useful,

Crafted,

Loved.

Chris Brown

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Chris Brown is an artist, author, editor and art therapist living amongst skyscrapers and regularly exploring the wilder landscapes of the United Kingdom.

Kim Reddick exhibited in the first ever CollectConnect exhibition, Open Fridge. A highlight of his CollectConnect participation was his contribution to Dwell: A book of Nets (published in 2015).

Chris Brown 2 (with Jack Low) - Sets, Series and Ensembles

Chris Brown 2

Welcome to Sets, Series and Ensembles, an exhibition of art in public places. Accompanying each public art placement is a 'First Response' for you to read here on the website. As artists and writers we are constantly collecting ideas, objects, themes, and sentiments. We are often searching for the connections and narratives that help us understand both our lives and our art.  

Love is the answer today, and it is our very own creative cupid Chris Brown, who has fired his artistic arrow into the Pevensey Road Nature Reserve in Hanworth. Responding to Chris' artwork is erudite Eros and creative all-rounder Jack Low. Read his response below.

Chris Brown 2

“Baby on board”
reflects in the glass
of the first class carriage,
Displaying over empty seats,
yet the destination 
is filled with open arms 

Armed with cannons
Castles crumble
as if nobody took their first steps within
memories are forgotten
like empty bottles
buried like a mothers touch
And still resurrected years later
within a wooden toy soldiers
brushed off with a promise to cherish 

Cherished unto a fault
The land is torn apart
By the blistering and caring heat
Enacted by a minority
Whilst people rise
And placards are thrown high,
what it means to be human 

Human spirit cries out like tears
shed infront of strangers
and splinters like glass  

I take away the equation
But the love Remains

Jack Low

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Chris Brown is an artist, author, editor and art therapist living amongst skyscrapers and regularly exploring the wilder landscapes of the United Kingdom.

Jack Low is a Brighton based writer. He published his debut poetry pamphlet, aesthetics of a dropout, in 2019. He currently leads a poetry group in Camden.

Chris Brown 3 (with Carole Bulewski) - Sets, Series and Ensembles

Chris Brown 3

Welcome to Sets, Series and Ensembles, an exhibition of art in public places. Accompanying each public art placement is a 'First Response' for you to read here on the website. As artists and writers we are constantly collecting ideas, objects, themes, and sentiments. We are often searching for the connections and narratives that help us understand both our lives and our art. 

On this cold crisp Autumnal day we step inside for the first time, where we find the first class artwork of Chris Brown. This is the first of three artworks that Chris has created for Sets, Series and Ensembles. We are always thrilled to receive his work, conceptually brilliant they have such a breadth of ideas and forms. Responding to Chris' artwork is Carole Bulewski, who has an equally broad rage of skills and ideas up her sleeve. She is a painter, singer, and weaver of dark lyrics and mysteries. Read her response below.

Chris Brown 3

Carole Bulewski

Prince Charles… Oops, sorry, King Charles. A photo of King Charles when he was still only Prince Charles, attempting to be seductive, and pretty much failing at it. A stamp of King Charles when he was still only Prince Charles, on top of a collage of stamps of the Queen. Lilac. The stamps of the Queen are of a vibrant lilac hue, contrasting with the black and white of King Charles’s photograph.

The camera moves away and we are… in an art gallery most likely? A photograph exhibition. And there King Charles when he was still only Prince Charles, on a stamp, sitting there on a table next to a flower arrangement, something reminiscent of a funeral parlour, heavy, white and lavender hues, nothing bright and joyful. Just like the picture of King Charles when he was still only Prince Charles. 

Time for my tea in the set the previous tenants got back in July 1981 for the royal wedding. 

Chris Brown 3

Chris Brown 3 - Pick Up

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Chris Brown is an artist, author, editor and art therapist living amongst skyscrapers and regularly exploring the wilder landscapes of the United Kingdom.

Born and raised in the south of France, Carole Bulewski moved to the UK at the end of the second Millennium, eventually settling down in London after a few years in the South West of England, a place that has inspired her with many a supernatural story since – writing first in her native French, but now almost exclusively in the English language. In her writing, she explores how the supernatural can creep into the most mundane of situations. Carole is a member of urban baroque group Firefay.
Tales of Confinement - Carole Bulewski

Chris Brown - Translocation Dislocation (words by Natalie Low)

Welcome to the Translocation and Dislocation exhibition, a selection of eclectic artworks that have been placed or screened beyond the tradition gallery walls. Alongside the art, you can read written works by our First Responders. We will choose a different location for each artwork, the art might be placed in a complementary location (to add to the narrative) or juxtaposed against a competing backdrop to create new meaning.

Chris Brown's wandering cowboy waits at a bus stop in Hampton Hill, he doesn't dream of the American frontier but of travelling to Kirkwall, the home of the finest ginger ale in Scotland. Natalie Low composes a ditty for our rhinestone hero, or should it be for our bovine hero. Read it below, or if you are in good voice, sing it out loud.

Chris Brown

First Responder: Natalie Low

(There are cowboy versions of  ‘My bonny lies over the ocean‘. Here is a boycow version.)

My Boycow lies under the peat gley,
My Boycow lies far from the sea,
My Boycow lies under the peat gley,
Oh, rescue my Boycow from me.

[Chorus]

Rescue, rescue,
Oh, rescue my Boycow from me, from me.
Rescue, rescue,
Oh, rescue my Boycow from me.

Oh, dig the ground under the peat gley,
Oh, dig the ground far from the sea,
Oh, dig the ground under the peat gley,
And rescue my Boycow from me.

[Repeat Chorus]

Today as I walk by the kirk wall,
To hide in the standing stones near,
Today as I walk by the kirk wall,
I wish that my Boycow was here.

[Repeat chorus]

They're digging the ground in the peat gley,
They're digging away from the sea,
They're digging the ground in the peat gley,
To rescue my Boycow from me.

[Repeat Chorus]

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Chris Brown is an artist, author, editor and art therapist living amongst skyscrapers and regularly exploring the wilder landscapes of the United Kingdom.

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017).

Chris Brown - groving / Acts of Resistance

Chris Brown's intriguing collage has been left in a gap in the stonework in The Traverse. The response is by Ed Arantus. 

Poppin' pills is the kowtow
Ride the hills we all know
Eat them on a Sunday
More again on Monday
Highs lowkey at the freak show
My Mum says it’s a no-no
But she’s just jumpin’ on her coco
We’re kickin', we’re shakin', more tremblin'
Don't be lost kin, cos’ we dyin', soon fryin'
Anything can happen at the freak show

High town, you got a big bung like a number one
It's freak night, one big freak show
If you feel like a roll, I found this place where
Poppin' pills is the love we know

Ed Arantus

Chris Brown is an artist and filmmaker. He has worked as an art therapist in the NHS and as a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently a freelance clinical supervisor and an editor for ATOL: Art Therapy OnLine. See http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/index,  https://vimeo.com/channels/theuncproj


Ed Arantus published his first work in the Censored Zine in 2010 and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford and the Museum of Futures in Surbiton. Earlier this year he was a writer for the Love Tokens and Bad Pennies exhibition with CollectConnect. See  http://edarantus.blogspot.com/ and twitter @edarantus

Groving Exhibition in Bury St Edmunds

This summer we're teaming up with Barbara Dougan at Grove Projects in Bury St Edmunds. Barbara  contributed to our Love Token's and Bad Pennies exhibition in the Spring of 2019 and she is growing the same format in the fertile arts ground of East Anglia from the 20th August to 5th September.

Groving is a new annual summer exhibition that explores aspects of Bury St Edmunds through specially commissioned works of art placed in public. People who come across the work can enjoy it, leave it for other people to see, or take it home. The theme this year is Acts of Resistance. Writers have been commissioned to write about the artworks, and the project will be documented on the Grove Project Blog and here at CollectConnect. 

Artists exhibiting are Alban Low, Alison Carlier, Amilia Graham, Bryan Benge, Chris Brown, Dean Reddick, Deborah Pipe, Eskild Beck, Jacquie Campbell, Julia Manheim, Sarah Sabin and Simon Brewster. They have made 17 new works of art - each less than 5cm x 5cm - which will be put out on the streets of Bury St Edmunds. The writers Astra Papachristodoulou, Amilia Graham, Ed Arantus, Kevin Acott, Lynda Turbet, Lynn Whitehead, Phil Barrett, Natalie Low, Sue Burge and Tim Welton are responding to the artworks. 

Chris Brown - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Chris Brown - Walthamstow

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Art - Chris Brown / Words - Ed Arantus

Wise fingers that scratch the numbers

Take your name and eat your thunder,

Brown ball come weave and whirl

Cracked your nut in teeth of squirrel.

non plus

non plus

non plus

Pluto

Quick minds that flick with fire

Burn like lies in amber tyres

More to turn all hope to sadness

A sombre dream of dying planets.

non plus

non plus

non plus

Pluto

non plus

non plus

non plus

Pluto

Chris Brown

Chris' artwork rests on top of a communications box in Walthamstow. The morning sun slants across it as the UK bathes in this unseasonally warm weather. Perhaps the sun's unwavering gaze has shrivelled this burnt offering to the size of nut. Waltham Forest is currently the London Borough of Culture and many parts of the Borough are undergoing extensive change with rapid housing development and large scale gentrification. 

Chris Brown is an artist and filmmaker. He has worked as an art therapist in the NHS and as a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently a freelance clinical supervisor and an editor for ATOL: Art Therapy Online,

http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/index

Ed Arantus is no stranger to art and writing, he first published his work in the Censored Zine (July 2010) and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford (2014). Last year he exhibited his poem 'Google If' at the Museum of Futures as part of the Enemies Project.

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th

April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Chris Brown - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Chris Brown-Love Token

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Art - Chris Brown / Words - Rebecca Lowe

Love Potion

Imagine you could bottle it,

The flash of iris,

Dilation of pupils,

Brush of fingertips

Across a table.

Imagine, everywhere you went,

You could scoop it up,

Press it down, quickening:

The flicker of laughter

Down a pavement,

Puckered lip

And shiver of voices.

Imagine you could concoct

A baby’s cry,

Pluck it clean off the sheets,

Pickled and preserved forever,

Or the last, fading corners

Of a smile

At the edge of passing.

What would you do with all that power?

Would you keep it for yourself,

Saved for a special occasion, like a fine wine?

Or glug it down in one sitting,

And to hell with the consequences?

Who’s to say we ever

Knew what to do with Love?

Dynamic as water,

Running through our fingers

Faster than we could gather?

Perhaps it’s safer this way:

Encased in glass

For other fools to master –

The rest of us breaking our fingertips

On the shards they left behind? 

Chris Brown- #unsettledgallery Epping Forest

Chris' potent love token stands proudly on a gate post on one of the underpasses which connect Epping Forest under London's busy roads. The Forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, bordering London and Essex and is an Ancient Woodland, one of the few left in London. The sculptor Jacob Epstein lived on the edge of the Forest. Nowadays the Forest is used by dog walkers, mountain bikers, horse and pony riders and picnicking friends and families as well as footballers, bird watchers and runners. I like to imagine all the lovers who might have left their own love tokens in the forest over the centuries. The Forest has also had its share of Bad Pennies reaching up to the present day.Take a walk through the Forest and see if you can find a Love Token or a Bad Penny. 

Chris Brown is an artist and filmmaker. He has worked as an art therapist in the NHS and as a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently a freelance clinical supervisor and an editor for ATOL: Art Therapy Online,

http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/index

Rebecca Lowe is a Wales-based writer, editor and performance poet. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4's Poetry Workshop, and her work has appeared in anthologies including Bristol Poetry Can, Red Poets, Blackheath Countercultural Review, and Three Drops from a Cauldron, an anthology of poetry based on folklore and myth. She also plays hammered dulcimer and zither, which she sometimes incorporates into her performances. 

http://www.writerscafe.org/BeckyLowe

http://swanmedia.wix.com/copywriter-cv

http://writemindfully.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More HERE.

AOC Opens at St Pancras Hospital

Ella Penn

Last night (20/07/2017) we officially opened the Art of Caring at St Pancras Hospital with a fantastic summer's evening of wine and song. The exhibition started as a postcard show at St George's Hospital way back in May but here it took on a new life. St Pancras curators Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay brought together many of the postcards again but also a healthy slice of original work by the artists involved.

There were many eye-catching contributions, including David Marron's Fentanyl Dreams, and Mark Carr's two paintings from his Cup of Life series. Two sculptural pieces which captured the attention of the Private View revellers were Louise O'Boyle's glass domed world and the Melanie Ezra and Graham Parker hand that reached out from beyond the a mirror. Once again Herbert and Harper-Gay had engineered an artistic exhibition that broke boundaries, creating a new exciting physical space but also an emotional world that talked of compassion and shared experience.

artwork by

Melanie Ezra and

Graham Parker

Many of the artists exhibiting were also in attendance. This was Caroline Streatfield Chalk's first exhibition with CollectCollect, while Ella Penn is a die-hard of the CollectConnect inclusive genre and has been exhibiting with us for more than 5 years. Penn had brought along Freya, the subject of her Alopecia Tableau, to join in the opening night celebrations. Aran Illingworth had sold two of her beautiful textile pieces by the end of the night, as had the famous Stuckist and Outsider artist John Sheehy. Chris Brown and Dean Reddick chatted amiably to the gallery visitors, and David Napier was on hand to demonstrate his ceramic chessboard/backgammon set.

The Sensory Garden was full of visitors and just by its entrance was Jill Rock and her challenging work Duty of Care. Many more of the artists were in attendance, thank you to everyone who was there to make this night such a success. We had speeches from Caroline Harris-Birtles (C&I Director of Nursing) Andrew Machin, (Associate Director and Charity Development Project Manager from The Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust NHS Charitable Fund) and Paul Newcombe (Pre -Registration Nursing Course Leader at St George’s Hospital and Kingston University).

Sarah Vista

We were treated to a live set of original country and western ballads from The Sarah Vista Social Club (with Jeff Mead). It was an evening both of celebration and though provoking pathos, many of the artists were explicit in their support for Nurses and NHS, with artworks that highlighted the political and financial threats that currently harry the profession.

Once again thank you all for supporting the Art of Caring. The exhibition runs until the 19th October at CONFERENCE CENTRE GALLERY, ST PANCRAS HOSPITAL, 4 ST PANCRAS WAY
LONDON, NW1 OPE. Please go an visit.

You can see a selection of photos by following this LINK.

See you next year.