Missy Flynn

I don’t make it across the river as much as I would like. No shade to the South, I’m just a creature of habit and routine. Crossing the river in pursuit of something specific always feels very rewarding, and most often it’s a restaurant or a gallery that drives me to do so. This route is a little far reaching but it’s designed to show that with a little bit of determination, you can really cover a lot of ground in one day.

The route begins with The Sunday Painter in Vauxhall, where Dominic Watson broaches the carnivalesque and the tragic with his large-scale installation of a galleon as an analogy of contemporary England; fittingly, it is entitled Vinegar & Piss. If you find the exhibition a little close to home, you can enjoy both at one of the things this country still does do well: the pub. The Canton Arms is just a two-minute walk down South Lambeth Road.

If not, hop on a bike and head to Cecilia Brunson Projects, a gallery championing South American art in Southwark. The exhibition for London Gallery Weekend develops a dialogue between painting and textile that approaches themes of landscape and ecology across the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Round the corner you’ll find Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery and Tainted Love, a group exhibition whose title is—you guessed it—borrowed from Soft Cell’s 1981 earworm of a single. The show explores the complexities of relationships in all their forms, tracing the messy terrain where intimacy is shaped as much by rupture as by connection.

Take a bike, or walk, across Tower Bridge towards Moorgate and Public Gallery. I live in this part of east London so it’s where I spend most of my time wandering around. I love the building that Public is split across; it sits in a relatively untouched part of the heart of the City, which somehow has held onto the feeling of a small urban community, overshadowed by unattractive corporate buildings. Those of you with a sweet tooth, continue up Commercial Street, where you have two options: either a doughnut at St John Bread & Wine, or cross the road and celebrate Mango Season at the Brick Lane supermarket, Taj Stores.

Now work your way west towards Nicoletti, where American artist Gray Wielebinski explores the performance of masculinity with his exhibition Bring Me Men—a reference to the slogan that once adorned the façade of the United States Air Force Academy. Then make your way (by bike, if you’ve still got the stamina, or bus) to Larkin Durey in St James. Anina Major’s works reference the traditional weaving technique of plaiting, which was taught to her by her late grandmother, and consider how the diasporic identity is formed through movement, memory, and transformation; how self and place is a condition of becoming rather than origin. 

Finish your day with the best Martini you can find in London at Rita’s. I’m not biased.