• HENRIETTA WILLIAMS
  •  
  • Testing Ground
  • Notes on Aerial Photography
  • State of Exception
  • Lockdown London
  • Aeronautica
  • Security as Theatre
  • Fortress Britain
  • The Secret Security Guard
  • Ring of Steel
  • Interface
  •  
  • ABOUT

 

henri@henriettawilliams.com

henri@henriettawilliams.com

Henrietta Williams (b. 1982) is an artist/researcher exploring urbanist theories. Her work takes the form of moving image and photographic installations, writing, walking and performance. These methods are often used as ways to ask questions about how our cities are formed through conflict and how the security and surveillance of the built environment change our lived experience.

Henri is a Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She is a core tutor on the MA Situated Practice and tutors across a number of programs with a particular focus on critical film making methodologies. She is currently completing an LAHP funded PhD by Design, also at the Bartlett, making short films and moving image installations alongside a written thesis.

Henri has exhibited work internationally including at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, the Mies van der Rohe Institute, the V&A, and the Architectural Association. She has presented her research through Open City Documentary Festival, Modern Art Oxford, the Royal College of Art, and the Bauhaus. Her project ‘The Secret Security Guard’ was featured on the front page of the Guardian newspaper and she has presented the ‘Ring of Steel’ project on a number of international television programs and the BBC Culture Show.

She lives in South London with her partner and 3 young children.



Exhibitions and screenings

Forthcoming – November 2023
‘Walking the Ring of Steel’, on site as part of ‘Traces and trajectories of surveillance’, London School of Economics, London.

June 2023
‘Testing Ground’ exhibition in collaboration with Merijn Royaards at the Urban Room Gallery, UCL East, London.

May 2023
Installation of ‘Notes on Aerial Photography’ as part of ‘Weaving Worlds’ exhibition, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

May 2021
Screening of ‘Walking the Elephant’, in collaboration with Anna Minton for the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast.

February 2021
Screening of ‘2020: State of Exception’, Royal College of Art, London.

November 2020
Screening of ‘2020: State of Exception’, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford.

September 2020
Screening of ‘2020: State of Exception’, Open City Documentary Festival, London.

February 2020
Screening of ‘Aeronautica’, Bartlett School of Architecture, London.

October 2017
Part of Logbook with Common Ground and Assemble, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln.

June 2017
Screening of ‘Aeronautica’, The Architectural Film Festival London, Bargehouse, Oxo Tower, London

May 2017
Screening of ‘The Model School’, European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2017, The Palau Victòria Eugènia, Barcelona

March 2017
Screening of ‘Austerlitz, London’, The Essay Film Festival, Birkbeck, London

February 2017
Screening of ‘The Mac’, Film Making Space, Royal Academy, London

May 2016
Screening of ‘As Above, So Below’, Clerkenwell Design Week, London

September 2015
Screening of ‘As Above, So Below’, Publica, Savoy Steps, London

April – July 2015
Exhibition of ‘Ring of Steel’, All of This Belongs to You, V&A Museum, London

October – November 2014
Exhibition of ‘Interface’, Describing Architecture, Powerscourt Centre, Dublin, Ireland.

September 2014
Screening at ‘Still Moving Festival’, Brixton, London.

June – July 2014
Screening of ‘Big Shed’, Architectural Association, London

May – June 2014
Screening of ‘The Mac’ at Irish Architectural Archives, Dublin.

June 2013
Exhibition of ‘Safwat+ Williams’, Architectural Association, London.

April 2013
Exhibition of ‘The Secret Security Guard’, Cities Methodologies, Slade Research Centre, UCL, London.

January 2013
Exhibition of ‘The Secret Security Guard’, This is Not a Gateway, Bishopsgate Institute, London.

Feburary 2011
Exhibition of ‘Ring of Steel’, Architecture of War, Open Democracy at the Drawers Gallery, Kingsland Road, London

October 2010
Exhibition of ‘Ring of Steel’, This is Not a Gateway festival, Hanbury St, London

July 2010
Exhibition of ‘Holding the Line’, Whistable Biennale, Whitstable.

October 2009
Exhibition of ‘Interface’, New Documentaries, Christ Church Spitalfields, London.

September 2009
Exhibition of ‘Interface’, Territories, The Otter Gallery, Chichester.



Published work – academic context – articles & chapters

Forthcoming
December 2023
Inscriptions – edition of Non-Fiction Journal

September 2023
‘Disrupting the Archive’, essay in Open City Documentary texts

July 2023
‘On Meta Incognita: Missive II’, essay in ‘Alia Syed: Imprints, Documents, Fictions’. Courtisane Notes on Cinema in collaboration with Open City Documentary Festival.

February 2020
‘Fortifying the City: Visualising London 2012’. The London Journal

March 2018
Contribution to chapter in Architecture and Control published by Brill.

December 2016
‘The Secret Security Guard’. Chapter in Engaged Urbanism: Cities and Methodologies published by I B Tauris.

April 2016
‘The Housing Crisis’. Visual essay published in collaboration with Anna Minton in City

October 2014
‘Fortress Britain.’ Urban Pamphleteer #3 Design and Trust.

May 2012
‘Ring of Steel’. Critical Cities Volume 3 published by Myrdle Court Press.



Lectures

May 2021
‘Artist talk’. Cork Centre for Architectural Education.

December 2020
‘Emergency Urbanism’. Urban Lab, UCL.

November 2020
‘Artist’s talk’. Oxford University.

November 2020
‘Artist’s talk’. Kingston School of Architecture.

March 2020
‘Artist’s talk’. Lecture and aerial surveillance workshop at UCA, Farnham.

February 2020
‘Artist/Researcher: film making practice as a tool to expand the possibilities of spatial research’. Part of the Constructing Realities lecture series, Here East.

September 2019
‘The Ring of Steel: A walking tour around the City of London’. Part of the Open City Docs Film Festival program.

June 2019
‘Artist’s talk’. Lecture as part of ‘London in the world: public/political practices in a global city’. Geography Department, UCL.

June 2019
‘Situated Practice: The essay-film as a tool to expand the possibilities of spatial research’. Lecture as part of ‘City, Essay, Film’ conference. Urban Lab, UCL.

April 2019
‘Situated Video’. London College of Communication.

February 2019
‘Situated Video’. Lecture as part of ‘Cinematic Urbanism’ conference. Leeds School of Architecture.

October 2017
‘The Essay Film’. Leeds School of Architecture.

February 2016
‘Aeronautica’. Lecture as part of Bartlett PhD Research Projects conference, UCL.
June 2015
‘Surveillance in the City.’ Lecture at Bauhaus, Weimar.

December 2013
Lecture on personal work as part of ‘Changing Cultures of (In)Visibility’ at the University of Cambridge.

September 2013
Lecture on the Ring of Steel, University of Bergen, (on a trip to London).

April 2013
Lecture on ‘The Secret Security Guard’, Cities Methodologies, Slade Research Centre, UCL.

February 2013
Lecture on the Ring of Steel, Art and Geography Conference, University of Lyon.

October 2011
Lecture on ‘Ring of Steel’, Cultures of Surveillance conference, UCL.

February 2011
Lecture on ‘Ring of Steel’ at the Royal College of Art, London



Media

April 2021
‘Decoding your city’, Guardian Masterclass.

June 2020
‘Lockdown London’, photos and essay for The Site Magazine

July 2017
Interview on ‘Ring of Steel’ for ‘Titel Thesen Temperamente’, NDR, German television.

June 2017
Photographs on the housing crisis for ‘’Big Capital”:https://www.annaminton.com/bigcapital by Anna Minton, published by Penguin.

July 2016
Harvard Design Magazine include ‘Ring of Steel’ project in issue on FEAR Issue No. 42.

June 2014
‘Ring of Steel’ published in MAS Context

January 2013
Fortress Britain, photos for report by Anna Minton and Jody Aked for the New Economic Foundation.

December 2012
Interview/feature on the Ring of Steel, ARCH
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January – August 2012
Working undercover for the Guardian as The Secret Security Guard

September 2011
‘Ring of Steel’ featured on ‘Fear has a 1000 Eyes’, Container TV (aired in Germany and Switzerland)

May 2011
The Culture Show, BBC 2
Interviewed by Tom Dyckhoff about ‘Ring of Steel’.

October 2010
So can the Ring of Steel save the City of London from terrorism?
feature by Kieran Long on the ‘Ring of Steel’ published in the Evening Standard

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