Architect Carol Mancke's installation Spotlight was a part of 'Cats Allowed', a one-day event in in a housing estate in east London made by a group of artists, architects and students. The estate is peppered with signs forbidding dogs, ball games, skating, music, etc, and the public realm is essentially unused. The event involved various games that were not explicitly forbidden.
Who would think to explicitly forbid charades (!) so Carol drew a spotlight using yellow tape on an old brick wall, and left a bucket with poetry snippets in it. The neighborhood children immediately knew what to do.
photo by Layla Testa; see also Carol's interesting exploration of how art interacts with health and safety regulations.
Where in the East of London was the project?
ReplyDeleteI lived on the Isle of Dogs in the early 80's when all the present Thatcherite idea's where in there infancy. (including the 'Enterprise Zone' idea which did not help the local community apart from crumbs of cheap labour).
Dark times, an almost exact replica of what is going on now. A case of history repeating itself.