Telling Tiles: Matthew Raw at the Ragged School Museum, 4–14 May

The Ragged School Museum on the banks of Regent’s Canal has witnessed almost two centuries of change in East London, as a succession of communities have come and gone, each leaving their own traces on the urban landscape. Even the museum buildings themselves have evolved over the decades: warehouse to schoolhouse, factory to museum. There can therefore be few more appropriate settings to host the artist Matthew Raw’s first solo show, Clad –  a study of urban evolution, and the migrant populations that drive it, in sculptural ceramic tiles.

For 10 days from 4–14 May, Raw will be displaying eight specially created artworks in clay, terracotta and earthenware tiles. Each piece is a response to the concept of the urban grid – the framework of streets, buildings, paving stones and indeed tiles, that shapes the cities around us – and the ways in which those grids are transformed by the movement of people over time.