Failing systems leave people living on thresholds, tracing unseen pathways through cities mapped differently. Doorways, stations and buses become temporary sanctuaries. Though shaped by hardship, such routes also open into deeper wisdoms. Here, resilience is not mere endurance within fixed systems, but survival through cycles, shapeshifting and radical adaptability to change. 

Stemming from the artists’ own journeys, the works in ‘Stories at the Seams’ explore wide-ranging entanglements of myth and lived experience. They knot together folklore and infrastructure, graffiti and scripture, bodies and ecologies. In this way, these artists find portals into inspiration where others might not look—in the underground arteries of transport, the shadows beneath flyovers or the glimpses from a night bus. Within this web of exchange—consumption, waste, beauty, charity, and violence—reality slips into the fantastical. Other worlds open up, offering new ways of seeing.

An ancient figure who continues to stand at the margins of civilisation is the Green Man. For centuries, he has appeared across the world, foliage spilling from his mouth and ears. He is woven into aural and written tales, depicted in paintings and still carved into the architecture of sacred buildings in the city. As a witness, he observes from the fringes of society, symbolising a portal between wildness and order, his leaves whispering of both endurance and renewal. In our streets, where people rough sleep, he lingers. Likewise, homelessness is not an individual failure but a collective forgetting that compassion is essential, and that our walls are thin against the wilderness we all share. 

The artworks in 'Stories at the Seams' remind us that myths were always meant to hold both light and shadow. At the edges of the unbearable, art becomes an act of remembrance—a stitching together of what has come apart, a movement toward compassion, renewal and repair.

6 - 9 November 2025 @ Swiss Church London.

Artists: John J Sheehy, Johnny B, Lewis EM, Lorraine, LUI SAATCHI, Mary Vallely, Matt, Pete, Peter, Ricaso, Richard

Opening hours: Fri 7 Nov - Sun 9 Nov, 12 - 6pm

Private view: Thurs 6 Nov, 5 - 8pm (all welcome)

Free admission (RSVP)

The multimedia artworks in ‘Stories at the Seams’ move between mythology and lived reality, echoing voices from the edges—thresholds where the known world begins to fray. The exhibition traces what is often hidden in plain sight—the junction of wildness and home, exclusion and belonging, what seems and what is. Here, where the fabric of order thins, reality itself begins to unweave.

Find out more about Portal Project.

The artworks in this exhibition have been made during weekly workshops at partner venues the Swiss Church London and the Actors’ Church. They have also been made with support from partners the London Graphic Centre and Rochester Square.

The ‘Stories at the Seams’ exhibition features a bronze ‘Green Man’ plaque that has been collaboratively made by Portal Project artists. It will later act as a public artwork, featuring a QR code linking to resources and helpful tips for those rough sleeping. The first plaque will be installed outside the Actors’ Church in Covent Garden this year, a location where rough sleepers find sanctuary.

The Big Issue, will present an accompanying Portal Project artwork in their 17 November 2025 magazine edition. Here, further stories, artworks and perspectives from the artists can be accessed through QR code ‘portals’.