Event Programme

Mendoza Mania Round One:

Exhibitions

The project launched with two audio/photographic exhibitions held in Paradise Gardens, a public park next to Bethnal Green tube station, and St. Margaret’s House, Old Ford Road.

Paradise Gardens, Paradise Row E2 9LE, open seven days a week

St. Margaret’s House, Gallery Cafe, 21 Old Ford Road, E2 9PL, open 8.30am - 6pm, seven days a week

The exhibition ran from 18 September - 6 November 2022

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On 18 September 2022 in Paradise Row, we celebrated the launch of Mendoza Mania with an afternoon of workshops, readings and performance.

QR codes placed on trees in Paradise Gardens and in the Gallery Café connected to this site, where visitors could listen to oral histories of local people whose experiences relate closely to those of Mendoza.

There were a small number of devices on hand at St. Margaret’s House for those who did not have access to smart devices.

Everything was free, accessible, family-friendly and open to all.

The event on 18 September featured:

12 - 12.30pm: A children’s Georgian-themed treasure hunt and percussion workshop inspired by Jewish music from around the world with Early Years educator Ivor Kallin

12.30pm - 1pm: Improvised viola and poetry with Ivor Kallin

1 - 1.30pm: A mini walk and talk tour with Roberto Nigro, researcher into Mendoza’s life

Anytime from 12 - 2pm: Guide to taking a “Georgian” Polaroid / portrait on your phone with Virginia Orr

Anytime from 2 - 4pm: Golem clay modelling workshop for all ages, inspired by Jewish folklore, with Kazuko Hohki and Nadia Jaglom

The exhibition was a way to engage the wider community in the histories of boxing and the Jewish connection to the East End dating back to Mendoza’s time and to explore the ways in which community members from a wide range of backgrounds are today “fighting back” against racism, discrimination and other challenges they encounter.

Bags of Hope

Workshops took place with Red Cross Hackney, working with 9 women who are recent arrivals to the UK to create the Bags of Hope Exhibition at The Gallery Café, which ran from 19 February - 31 March 2023.

The workshops were based on the idea of Mendoza being a symbol of hope; as a role model for resilience against discrimination and as a symbol of hope for migrant, Jewish and oppressed people. In the 18th century, for hundreds of people Mendoza represented a huge shift in how Jewish people were perceived in the public eye.

Being Human Festival Event

19 November 2022

St. Margaret’s House, Gallery Café, 6.30-8.30pm

The event featured Professor Nadia Valman (Queen Mary University of London) and Nadia Jaglom (Westminster University) in conversation about a history radical Jewish female identity and intersectionality, particularly in relation to the East End. With readings by Sue Kreitzman, Lxo Cohen, Sally Flood, Professor Rachel Garfield, Maisie Newman and more.

6.30pm: Nadia Valman and Nadia Jaglom in conversation

7pm: Poetry readings/artists’ talks

7.30pm : Audience Q&A

Mendoza Mania Round Two:

A Community Play

St. Hilda’s East Community Centre, 18 Club Row, E2 7EY

Thursday 4 May 2023, 6.30-7.30pm

Mendoza Mania!, a collaboration with Voicebox (Cecilia Garcia and Benji Teare) and artists Kazuko Hohki, D’relle West and Annie Chadwick was presented at St. Hilda’s East. The production was the culmination of more than three months’ workshops with a group of young people and volunteers aged 10-15 from the local community, using Mendoza’s autobiography as source material.

Voicebox specialise in using drama to investigate masculinity. The group explored Mendoza’s heritage by looking at his upbringing and arrests for violent behaviour as well as how he fought against racism to change perceptions of being Jewish and went on create a play inspired by and devised around their own real experiences.

Mendoza Mania Round Three:

Throughout June 2023, a group of under-represented artists worked together to create a short film inspired by Daniel Mendoza as the final part of the project.

Fight Night, looks at embodied histories, cultures, and identities, with each movement sequence built out of participants’ lived experiences of having to “fight back” or defend themselves and their identities. Shot in Britain’s oldest boxing club (Repton), Fight Night explores how our hands, feet, gestures, and words take us on different journeys and can shape the course of our lives.

An intensive workshop programme held at St. Margaret’s House, involved dance, pottery, devising, life writing and other exercises and took place over four days, followed by one day of filming.

Mendoza Mania was a community project created by St. Margaret’s House, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund