Analysis of Elephant and Castle Intervention

I was given a task to look at strategies such as developing critical spatial practices and surveying agencies that support public art approaches in the real space of Elephant and Castle in an attempt to become familiar with the space and identify an opportunity for an intervention. In order to design a site specific photographic intervention I had to research around the subject and familiarise myself with community and specially orientated photography. I also drifted around the Heygate Estate in order to both see and feel the invisible community within Elephant and Castle. My research led me to think about the residents of the Heygate and led me to wonder what effect the upcoming regeneration was going to have on the community. A natural progression therefore was to research any form of intervention done on the effects of regeneration on a residential area.

Through my research I discovered two different forms of community involvement artistic projects that I could relate directly to the type of intervention I was hoping to achieve. It has been said that British artist Steven Willats pioneered the concept of making portraits of people and communities by presenting objects of relevance to people and recording their thoughts on each particular thing. In 1980 Willats was working on the Avondale Housing Estate to record residents’ attempts to overcome the pre-planned urban environment they were living in. The suggestion was made that instead of just recording the intervention photographically, that a more involved way to interact and record would be to directly apply objects and script to the recording medium therefore involving the atmosphere and the people of the project. This resulted in the “Pat Purdy and the glue sniffers camp” 1981. It consisted of an image of the estate on one side, an image of waste ground located close to the estate on the other, and in the middle on a smaller panel it contained an image of a fence with a hole in it, a can of evo-stick, as well as other objects that had meaning to the Avondale Housing Estate.

http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/4,biog/

The second community based artistic project that I found was “The Docklands Community Poster Project” which was founded by Peter Dunn and Lorraine Leeson in response to the residents of East London communities because of their concern over the multi million pound regeneration of the Docklands from St. Katherine’s Dock to the Royal Docks. Residents who did not fully understand what was happening to their community, approached the artists Peter Dunn and Lorraine Leeson to ask if they would help bring awareness to the lack of involvement in the changes that were about to occur to the vast amount of people in the Dockland area. Peter and Lorraine already having some experience in this area agreed and the Docklands Poster Project was born, (1981) .During its time they created six photomural sites around the Docklands, showing a series of images called ‘The changing picture of docklands’.

http://www.bardaglea.org.uk/bridges/docklands/docklands-community.html

To put these posters in the places that would bring the most attention over a period of time they used advertising boards. To address the lack of information a series called the ‘First Sequence’ was created asking the question ‘WHAT IS GOING ON BEHIND OUR BACKS?’ and from here they took what they saw as the most important issues to the residents and tried to answer them,
they also placed a lot of attention on the subject of housing, and here they created a series called ‘The housing sequence’. With this approach the period of development in the Docklands taught developers, government, and community reps that the way forward was to involve rather than omit, taking into account people’s opinions, and people feeling they have the right to express their opinion in what happens in their community.

The 1.5 billion regeneration programme of Elephant and Castle led by Southwark council is to be over a 170 acre area and designed to bring Elephant and Castle into the 21st century.
Its building plans include:
 .Demolition of the Heygate Estate and shopping centre.
 .Rehousing of Heygate’s residents into affordable social housing
 .Building of two new parks
 .Addition of two extra schools and a city academy.
 .Removal of congested road system and diverting traffic out of the area.
 .Building of modern retail facilities.

http://www.elephantandcastle.org.uk/businessandcommunity/heygateprogramme/

In the 1960s-1970s the tower blocks were a popular solution to overcrowding in the inner city for councils. With them they could provide cheap, affordable, public sector housing to low income groups. They were easy and quick to build using reinforced concrete, replacing the old terraced houses. Also, providing more open space in the inner city with extra space planners could build small shopping precincts providing a centralised shopping area instead of small corner shops spread through the community. All this extra space also allowed planners to think about its roads and other retail areas.

The Heygate Estate has now become a giant grey building with many of its residents living in sub standard accomadation with the fear of crime bringing the Heygate a bad and uncomfortable reputation, it’s the residents of the Heygate that are going to see most of the upheavel of regeneration in the next few years and they will have the most alterations in their lives due to it. Also, the Elephant and Castle shopping centre that has the central role of local amenities will bring great changes to the lives of local residents and buisnesses due to its regeneration. Taking inspiration form the Docklands Poster Project and Steven Willats the idea came to me to use a combination of both their ideas, taking the Docklands Poster Project I began to imagine something similar for Elelphant and Castle and adding Willats’ idea of directly involving the subject of his projects I combined them both into a project inolving printing a poster of Elephant and Castle with a question on it to attract the attention of the intended subjects, and leaving writing tools to invite people to leave their opinions.
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The intervention I chose for this project involved studying two public spaces:
1. Heygate Estate tower block.
2. Elephant and Castle shopping center.

I will start with describing what I did in the tower block and then I will analyse the result.

In the tower block I used four printed posters that had an image of the tower block from a distance, so that it would be recognised, with a question “TELL ME”? “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ME”?. The prints were installed on four floors opposite the lifts so that they would be openly visible to the residents of the Heygate. Attached to the posters were pens allowing people to write a response to the question, they were left over night with no invigilator.We returned and removed the posters when we thought we had enough of a response or when we thought we were about to lose them.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i37/pjtubridy/IMG_1717.jpg


In analysing the responses of the participants we can break them down into two specific catagories. The first being what we would deem as off the cuff remarks, spontanious answers addressing issues of interpersonal address, for example, comments addressing issues of sexuality and interratial relationships. The second category would be what one could consider a more thoughtful response to the question, these involve people making reflective remarks about their living environment, addressing living conditions.

The following list shows an example of thoughtful opinions left by residents on the posters:
1. Rubbish outside lovely inside
2. You need more work and you look old
3. It’s cool but the estate is a bit uncomfortable
4. I would rather stay here
5. Needs security doors
6. I think we should have a garden please
7. Get the politicians to live here
8. Rodney Road council are not very good with advice, it becomes more and more a business
9. A real home is with a garden

These comments are what one could deem as not so thoughtful:
1. Old and nasty
2. I think its horrible
3. I’m sorry but I hate you
4. Waste of money horrible, rodent infested leaking when it goes can I (?)the detonator
5. Disgraceful.

Next I will describe what I did in the shopping centre and then I will analyse it.
In the shopping centre I began by attaining permission to put six posters up at the exits. Then I printed the six posters with images of the shopping centre and the questions in bold ink as to attract people’s attention.

1. Elephant and castle shopping centre what you want,

2. What’s happening to your shopping centre?

3. The new elephant and castle are you ready

4. A persons home is there castle, what would u like to see in ure new castle.

5. As part of ure community what would u like me to become.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i37/pjtubridy/IMG_4291-1.jpg

I then posted the posters at six of the main entrances leaving pens for people to respond .In total the posters were left for a week with some having to be replaced because of the vigorous response we received:
1. More amusements for kids
2. Bring back the cinema
3. Cleaner places more cleaners,
4. Lifts please
5. Layout and decoration, lamination.
6. Better car park, modern shops, free and clean toilets, cafes and libraries, better architectural design of the whole complex which has its own uniqueness, make it the best shopping centre in London.

In initialising and seeing through my intervention and analysing the responses I received on the posters it has led me to question the notion of how public this art intervention was. That is the two ‘public’ spaces that I chose indeed are conceptions of space and of being public. The Heygate Estate is viewed as a public area and the regeneration of the estate is for the public. However, reading and analysing the responses from the posters hung in the estate viewing this space as public can be problematic. If it were truly public then no-one would be excluded from it there would not be a sense of insider and outsider, yet this intervention has brought into the foreground indeed this notion. The comments made on the poster are personal and the opinions of the ‘Heygate’ community, which is indeed another branch perhaps of the Elephant and Castle community. Councillors and people who do not live on the estate are seen as ‘outsiders’ regardless of whether they live in Elephant and Castle. As Massey writes, ‘A public space is about social processes, practices and relations between people that negotiate social differences’ (pg6, 2003). Therefore public spaces are not ‘just there’ the interactions that take place within them are the underpinning of the existence of public space. This is also true of the second part of the intervention which involved the hanging of my spatial public intervention in the shopping centre. The two parts of the intervention call into question the identity of the space and the people within the space, those which I relied upon to gather information through my intervention by them writing on the posters therefore creating the public art. My initial ideas had already conceptualised identity of the community I was targeting, however, I have realised that my intervention has helped to create an identity, therefore create a public space, a public piece of art. The intervention therefore has ‘…call[ed] into being, new or different or unexpected lines of differentiation. It [was] in itself an intervention into social space’ (Massey, pg9, 2003).


















Patrick Tubridy
Bibliography

Massey, D, 2003, Personal Views: Public Art Research Project, The Open University, Commissioned by Artpoint



http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/photo.htm

http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=D8A54B7B-477D-46F7-B16D8ABC74422142

http://www.cspace.org.uk/cspace/archive/docklands/dock_arch.htm

http://collections.walkerart.org/item/object/8676

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/abrundung/

3. dec 2006,
all posters taken down , working in analasis now,presentation on tusady with aviv and then a showing of he posters,

http://www.elephantandcastle.org.uk/businessandcommunity/heygateprogramme/

http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Attraction/Elephant__Castle_Shopping_Centre/a4d7/

2. Friday 10th November '06, 6:00pm:We have now replaced five of the original posters with four altered and one 'What's happening to your e/c?'. We decided on 'As part of your community what would you like me to become?'In the hope of teasing out a more concerned response. The purpose of this is not to get a more mature and responsible reaction but as a variation on what we have already attained such as bringing the question from the point of view of the building and asking the reader or respondent to engage with the shopping centre, represented by the picture of the building.

Friday 10th November '06:Today we were looking at removing up to three of the posters. this is due to them being full or the space left has been scribbled over. This also offers us the opportunity to review what we have achieved by the poster / the question and the response we've got, also the type or response. So far from just a quick look at what has been written on poster 1 we're considering keeping the images on the relevant posters but changing the question to try to attract a more relevant response rather than an immotive, unengaged, flippant one. This may be seen as being directional but we have already gained a reaction at the more general level so why not attempt to be more precise in the time we have left? And also as the opportunity is available to us I think we should. The Type Of Questions...1. In what way am I a part of YOUR community?2. What is MY role in YOUR community?3. What would YOU like ME to be in your community?My own ideas hinge around the idea of 'An Englishman's home is his castle'. Ofcourse in this circumstance has a dual meaning working in it which I think would work well if a question could be brought from it.AN ENGLISHMAN'S HOME IS HIS CASTLEUnable to usethis word as not all people in e/care EnglishCould use 'a man's ''a person's''A person's home is their castle''Is this castle your home?''What do you want to see in your NEW CASTLE'

5. Thursday 9th November '06:Once again location has played a part in the amount of response but one I liked is, 'Good riddance to bad thing' The Masked Marvel

4. Thursday 9th November '06:Not a lot of reponse to this one again, possibly due to its location. the response that we did get was mostly based on the motto 'One love and peace'. Mixed with grammatical corrections, possibly a lecturer from LSBU who was unable to resist correcting our bad spelling and English.

3. Thursday 9yh November '06:I found a young girl lazily colouring in between the letters and being very pleased with her handy work I left this one to the young artist to return later when it was free.

2. Thursday 9th November '06: Not as much writing as number 1 probably due to its location, also the comments are different. One is almost too knowledgable,'Better car park, modern shops, free and clean toilets ,cafes and libraries etc.'Other comments 'How long will it take to build it again?' 'How will we spend our money?'

1. Thursday 9th November '06 3:30pm:Arrived a t picture 1 on the ground floor to find it filled with general comments. Ranging from 'More free toilets' to 'thieves Fantasy'. Number one has had a lot of attention from a cross section of people judgig from the actual writing and to what was written. We will have to replace it tomorrow ready for the weekend.

This is my attempt to keep a live journal on my blog as i work on my project , . its based on the construction of a project in e/c around regeneration of the area ,SO HERE GOES ,so at the moment i am thinking and working towards a new project based around e/c shopping center , there a lot of people , traders , shoppers , employers,-employees , worrying about their jobs , futures , being effected by the regen,,,, of the e/c area , i am working with aviv on how to approach this one without repeating WHAT IT WAS WE DID IN THE HAYGATE , ,WITH THE S/C THEYR A FEW NOTEABLE DIFFRENCES TO B TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT , FIRST IT IS IN A MORE PUBLIC AREA WITH A GAINING ACCESS TO A LOT MORE VARIED AMOUNT OF PEOPLE , , SECOND WERE ARE DEALING WITH ANOTHER TYPE OF INTERVENTION IN SURVEILLENCE , ( THAT WILL B WATCHING US )SO WITHOUT PERMISSON WE WOULD NOT GET VERY FAR , here we,ve had to get permission from the building manager as to b able to hang any sort of poster without it being torn ,,taken down ,,and are now working on it , the statement we r thinking of putting on this one , ( if its poss to call it that.(what will happed to yuo when ime gone , ) a very good start , , ,(were even thinking of doing different posters with different questions ,but for the moment its one poster one quesion , to try to understand what is going on in e/c shopping centerewe eshould try to understand the people within it , the traders who have worked within it for years and their costumers who have grown older knowing anything nothing different , , .the people who visit the centere on a daily basis , some just to b able toget out of the house , )(poss...... haygate ) others to have food,ime sure its used as a meeting place for older people during the day and younger in the evening , these are th people who wee need to make contact with , , get them interacting with oure poster, writing on it to invite them to interact with us by giving their views on e/c shp/centr soon demise and what they think the future holds for them ,


Monday 6th November '06:

Printed three sets of posters, three questions. Approached Mike from e/c shopping centre (s/c) with proposed work. He allowed two sets and had reservations about the third. NEW ELEPHANT AND CASTLE...DO THEY HAVE YOU IN MIND?He felt it would receive a negative response and his company wants to ensure that all interaction is within a positive spin.With that we reviewed the third poster and came up with THE NEW ELEPHANT AND CASTLE...ARE YOU READY? Returning at three o'clock for Mike's approval on achieving that we preceded to be given permission to hang three posters on each floor, each at a separate entrance. We have permission to hang the posters for a week and hopefully in this period of time we will gain a positive reponse.We are expecting a differen amount of reaction from day to day with the weekend possibly bringing the most attention to the work.

Resident of elephant and castle who kindly posed for this photograph.

This image i feel shows that within the estate the spirit of people can never b crushed, no matter what the enviroment , People will allways make there home a more pleasant place and will allways feel that they have lost some part of ther soul when they have to leave it .

Build them high, Rent them cheap.!

Photographic secion of the heygate estate.

Walkway to heygate estate.

Entrance to elephant and castle subway and underground .

Elephant and castle guard dog .

wicked,fucked up but cool,old and nasty,i am sorry but i hate you ,a real home is with a garden,night mare hood ,change the style , more colour,the homes are lovely inside, but terible outside, the designers should have been sacked soon as they finished the dirty job, needs security doors,the trees look good,disgraceful, needs to be knocked down and new councel flats back up in it place-that are the same rent ,get the poloticans to live here ,

HELL HOLE

FULL OF MICE

BREAK IT DOWN

Third floor ,

With these last 5 posters they were put up on the sunday afternoon left till the next morning till about 9o/c and even in this short time one han been torn down and left half way down one of the balconeys . One reasonethis could be was the time and the day , being saturday night -- sun morning the element of the type of people getting involved with the poster may have direct influence what may happen to them , especially that the attraction we had hoped was removed by using lesser quality paper was replaced with some sort contempt ,

We left it over night returning the next eve to see what we had or in this case what we didn't have , we had lost 3 out of 4 posters which was dissappoiting but what was left was exciting and very encouraging ,
on reviewing the loss of 3 of our beloved posters we came to the conclusion that we may have inadvertently encouraged the loss ourselves , first we used were fine photographical paper and also we may have left the posters up for too long .. Taking the content of the remaining poster our 3 others would have made a fine work of art for anybody.
our next attempt was of a more measured attempt, we used a lesser paper and left the 4 posters overnight only , we received a less dramatic result but a more in quantity one, what we received this way gave us an insight to what happens over a short time within heygate and the results would speak for themselves ,

TELL ME ?,,HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ME ??

We the proceeded to place a total of 4 poster in a promedant place within the t/b, this was just opposite the lift doors enabling every body who used the lift to see our poster clearly and to b able to decide to if they wanted to get involved , the question used was chosen because in engaging with the public in this way we wanted to recieve a reaction due to the upcoming regen and the social conditions within heygate its self .

We proposed the idea of using poster with a image of the t/b taken from the front with a question on it .,
this would act as a way of attracting people and also inviting them to engage with the poster via the question,
we also decided to provide pens, (markers - 99p from local shop ) so that people could leave comments on the spare blank space on the poster .

1. Thursday 9th November '06 3:30pm:

Arrived a t picture 1 on the ground floor to find it filled with general comments. Ranging from 'More free toilets' to 'thieves Fantasy'. Number one has had a lot of attention from a cross section of people judgig from the actual writing and to what was written. We will have to replace it tomorrow ready for the weekend.

Monday 6th November '06:
Printed three sets of posters, three questions. Approached Mike from e/c shopping centre (s/c) with proposed work. He allowed two sets and had reservations about the third. NEW ELEPHANT AND CASTLE...DO THEY HAVE YOU IN MIND?
He felt it would receive a negative response and his company wants to ensure that all interaction is within a positive spin.

With that we reviewed the third poster and came up with THE NEW ELEPHANT AND CASTLE...ARE YOU READY? Returning at three o'clock for Mike's approval on achieving that we preceded to be given permission to hang three posters on each floor, each at a separate entrance. We have permission to hang the posters for a week and hopefully in this period of time we will gain a positive reponse.
We are expecting a differen amount of reaction from day to day with the weekend possibly bringing the most attention to the work.

Questionnaires , are a good way , but with a rigidity of the questions there is no room for personal opinions of the individual , also to cover everything there would have to b too many questions , to allow people to b able to express what it is they really think the decision was made to create a poster asking a question that could b interpreted many ways , answered many ways , and no restrictions placed on the individuals personal circumstances .

GRAFFITI
LEAFLETTING FOR OPINIONS IS A WAY OF ALLOWING PEOPLE TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES ON A ISSUE THAT I WOULD IMAGINE THEY WOULD FIND DIFFICULTY IN FINDING A UN RESTRICTED SOUND BOARD . Which leads me to think how do people communicate publicly and express opinions in the wider community , and of course there are many ways ,

PLANNING PROJECT ,,


WHEN I STARTED THINKING ABOUT AN INTERVENTION IN E/C I HAD NO IDEA WHAT INTERVENTION MEANT IN THIS CONTEXT ,
intervention to me is to ( go between ) (interfere)( to get involved in something that has already begun )so I had ideas like leafletting residents of e/c for their opinions on what they though was going on with the re gen , what they wanted to see happen during and after regen ,
I would then take this info with the intention of creating a web site to be presented to the powers that be as an act of involvement and active participation by the residents in their future.
Working within the confines of time limits this project it would be hard to create every thing needed and still achieve a result within 4 months working on my own ,

Now e/c is poised to b regenerated , and its planning has been in the air for a number of years , now it is beginning to settle people are more aware now than ever that their community is about to under go a massive change, they are taking anything to do with the re-fit very seriously and are paying more attention to what is going to happen to them and their lives and livelyhoods,

With this approach the period of development in docklands taught developers , government, and community reps that the way forward was to involve rather than omit, taking into account peoples opinions, and people feeling they have the right to express their opinion in what happens in their communities.

All of these alterations to the docklands took time and had a mojor unsetteling effect on the residents who did not fully understand what was happening to their community, homes or themselves.
in 1980 a group of reps from the tenants groups approached the artists peter dunn and lorraine leeson to ask if they would help bring awareness to the lack of involvement in the changes that were about to occur to the vast amount of people involved ,
peter and lorraine allready having some experience in this area agreed and the docklands poster project was born , (1981)
During its time they created 6 photomural sites in docklands,showing a series of images called (the changing picture of docklands )to put these posters in the places that would bring the most attention over a period of time they used advertising boards , to adress the lack of info situation a series called the (first sequence was created asking the question WHAT IS GOING ON BEHIND OURE BACKS AND FROM HERE THE TOOK WHAT THEY SAW AS WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES TO THE RESIDENTS AND TRIED TO ANSWER THEM ,
they also placed alot of attention on the subject of housing , and here they created a series called (the housihg sequence



http://www.cspace.org.uk/cspace/archive/docklands/dock_arch.htm

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