A Public Address

Battersea Town Hall was once a site for radical politics, including infamous speeches and debates on religion, suffrage, social housing and art.

In February and March 2026, Quarantine took over the former Town Hall – now Battersea Arts Centre to ask: who gets heard in a place like this today?

Part of Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture year, A Public Address brought together people across Lavender Hill, the borough and beyond, to create a programme of events from intimate encounters to grand-scale durational performance.

Built out of 3 existing pieces of Quarantine’s work, re-made locally (No Such Thing, The people of and 12 Last Songs) and 1 brand new one (the two-part Why I am and why I am not), the takeover unfolded both in and outside the building. A Public Address is a geographical and human ‘zooming in’, shifting between the public and the private, the epic and the intimate.

Read an article by Stevie Mackenzie-Smith reflecting on the project here, and take a look at our journal post A Public Address: in pictures here.

A BAC and Quarantine Co-Production. A Public Address was part of Welcome to Wandsworth, London Borough of Culture. London Borough of Culture is a Mayor of London initiative.