Sylvia Morgardo
INT: Interviewer
SM: Sylvia Morgardo
INT: Hello, please introduce yourself
SM: Hello I am Sylvia Morgardo and I am a visual and community artist and also a researcher, em, I
work in the intersection in art and ? and also my work is around diversity and inclusion in cultural
spaces.
INT: Can you tell us a bit about your connection to Rosetta and how you got started?
SM: So yeah, I first heard of RA through a colleague at the British Council, I use to work at the British
Council, I use to check to websites and then I saw they were doing this course about community arts
organising, and I applied, very last minute and I think that was the beginning of our journey. The
course was really really amazing! I think as the teacher at the time gave amazing reference, because
I like the topic, I went on to buy a lot of books about community art, community participation, and
then yeah after that I applied for the Accelerator Artists scheme. It was the first year Rosetta was
doing it, so it was all back in 2020 and I think, because I was in this course – community arts
organising, I had em, a clearer picture of what I wanted to do with my work in the local community
because I’m based East London for many years. I’m originally from Brazil, I like to say that, eh, but
I’ve been living in the UK for the last 14 years and most of the time in East London and I’m really
passionate about my local community. So, I saw the opportunity of being part of the Accelerator
Artist Scheme as a great opportunity to further develop my skills in working with communities
because I was doing the course how to organise community groups for change, was an opportunity
to put this in practice I was already doing this for a few years. Actually, my working in working with
communities started back in 2016 with another organisation from East London, em, in the end, it
was kinda doing anything. I had some good mentors, but I was working with the same organisations.
Having the chance to be at the Artist Accelerator brought me new opportunities as I was working
with them, art workshops here, also other organisations, other projects and organisations and
projects. It seems as though I have been working on lots of projects, different capacities, training,
not only the Accelerator.
INT: Em, can you talk about your connection to Newham and any changes you have noticed since
you started to where you are now?
SM: When I started working the different arts people wouldn’t talk much about it, Em, the UK is a
pioneer of something called ‘Social Prescription’. Not many people are aware of it or was, this has
changed since the pandemic, so basically for people who doesn’t know – you go to your doctor, he
sends you to the social prescriber at your GP and the social prescriber will prescribe you activities
such as a walk with group of people, or art activities, em, and I could see this growth interest in
social prescription, but also people more valuing arts as an activity that can bring you relaxation,
good for your mental health, good for you socialisation, you know, so many things, that arts can
bring. I can see that although we need to do so much, there are more grants available, so we can do
more projects, involve more people. Something else that I’ve been involved in Rosetta Arts, not only
to be able to do the arts activities, but to equip people to be able to do it as well. It was a great
programme to be involved with Rosetta Arts. I can see more arts in the streets at Royal Docks. It
wasn’t there a few years ago, now we can see arts outdoors, that’s great as you have arts for
everyone and my involvement with the area. As I say, I have been based here for a while now and
I’m really passionate about bringing arts for the local community and we have the benefit of well-
being and also to promote well-being and neighbours getting to meet each other. This is constant
feedback I get from the workshops, even from different organisations. They get know each otherthrough these activities and Rosetta is great at doing that – promoting activities and delivering
training that bring people together. And from there we can do more collaborations and this is
something I have seen happening in this space.
INT: Say a little bit about something you would like to see in the future
SM: Em, I would like to see more people in arts activities, whether it is writing, painting – anything
that brings people together to bring change, by change I mean personal change such as
improvement of health and well-being, but also change for the neighbourhood as art is a very
powerful tool to bring social change. I would like to see more of this happening through arts – yeah!
