A public artwork I am developing in Croydon. Locals are asked two questions, what are their hopes and fears. These are high and low points that help us to recreate what may be going on in people’s lives. Forming a conceptual portrait/landscape of the area. A poster with a phone number on will be placed all over Croydon. When viewers message the mysterious phone number they receive the thoughts from locals onto their phones.
The work views phones as an extension of our bodies, creating a bio-mechatronic link between people and our personal tech. Using automated business functionality and our personal devices to create something intimate and connect strangers who walk past each other in the streets. It is a community focused work to create empathy and show what is happening in the area through the people.
The poster is based on imported Persian carpets and how those are the inspiration for heritage English design. Designs that are imported and travel the world easier than the people from the regions the designs originate. So there’s a link I'm seeing between Britain's actions abroad and the way the cultural exchange is playing out through fabrics and design. A reflection on the idea of Britishness, the narrative of immigrants and Britain itself.
I’ve been using these Persian carpets for a while as a metaphor for the movement of people, multiculturalism and imports in Britain. These designs have a long history and they’ve settled in the Middle East and South Asia. But they move around the world being imported into various countries. Like Britain, they’re heavily imported here and seen as the epitome of good style, high interior designs, chic. But the people from those areas have a more difficult reception and journey and connotations. William Morris who was a very famous British design pioneer used to look at those carpets for inspiration and so they’re literally woven into the fabric of the history of this country and heritage designs. My poster uses a Persian carpet with many of the embroidered designs we see in William Morris prints acting as a backdrop for the phone number connecting everyone to each others thoughts.
Croydon is one of the London boroughs that has over 50% minorities, the carpet brought up ideas for me of the fabric of the country, immigrant workers and home.
My hope for this work is that it is used by the community to grow closer and my fear is that it will get drowned out by all the awful goings on in the country and the world.