The Push and the Pull is a new site-specific work by Ben Judd, created in partnership with local community groups, developing themes of belonging and not belonging, engagement and estrangement.

Over five days, an historic Thames sailing barge will travel between Whitstable and the Isle of Sheppey, acting as a creative space and site for experimentation and in the process exploring ideas around community and islands, both real and imaginary.

This new work will consider the river as a channel of communication that connects communities; within this context the boat embodies conflicting ideas of separateness and togetherness. The boat-as-island suggests an isolated utopian project where narratives can be invented, reused and recycled within a relatively closed society.

Ben’s performance, The Push and the Pull, will take place on the boat as it travels between Whitstable and Sheppey, evoking a fictional lost community of the island.  He’s also worked with several local community groups to develop responses to Sheppey and the locality, including: songs by Oast House Community Choir; costumes for performances by the University for the Creative Arts; prose and poems by a group of local writers; a dramatic performance by Big Fish Arts; and an instrumental composition with local musicians.

There will be daily bookable performances of Ben’s The Push and the Pull on the boat; there are four spaces for passengers to join its journey. These will be bookended by further performances on the boat by the community groups both before departure and after it arrives at its destination.

Co-commissioned with Ideas Test. Supported by Arts Council England and Nottingham Trent University.

Schedule for Wednesday 15 June

10:00-11:00 – Performance at Queenborough All Tide Landing by Oast House Community Choir

11:30-16:00 – Boat travels from Queenborough to Whitstable, with a performance of Ben Judd’s The Push and the Pull

17:00-18:00 – Performance at Whitstable Harbour by Oast House Community Choir