Site – specific installation, paint and vinyl.
Nunhead Community Centre.
Jenny Steele’s site specific installation, ‘Communitas Digitas’, at the disused Nunhead Community Centre draws from the graphics of online petitioning through blogs and local community forums that sought to reopen the important local amenity after closure due to a health threat. For a period of years, committed enthusiasts persisted in attempts to save the local gathering space through chemical testing, petitions, community meetings and discussion with the local council. Unfortunately, the decision was made earlier this year by the local authority to demolish the site permanently.
The digital architecture of the relevant sites - predominantly ‘Save the Nunhead Community Centre’ (http://nunheadcentre.blogspot.com/), ‘Nunhead Community Forum’ (http://nunheadforum.co.uk) and the local councillors blog, (www.fiona-colley.net/) - are juxtaposed with the physical architecture of the Nunhead Centre. Such digital spaces allowed limited discourse, communication and sense of community when the original structure remained physically present, yet out of limits. The architectural forms of the blogs and sites have been reproduced using black and white, colours predominant in print media – the prevalent leading media at the time of construction and inhabitation of the centre.
Jenny Steele would like to thank Dave Barton for his kind help in constructing the installation.
No comments:
Post a Comment