Design with Anthony at Public Works.
At The Camden Art Centre, Anthony and I meet Andreas from Public Works, an art, design, and architectural practice. We were shown around their latest exhibition, where they used a milk float to capture 'community spirit'. The main purpose of this was to challenge the conventions of regeneration projects, by encouraging the community to self-regenerate their area, if that makes sense. I thought the idea was great! They had spent time talking and working with people from the community, creating posters that inspire and call upon the community to help themselves. They were then going to fly post these posters around the area. Love it!
That was just one example and there are may more of how Public works are able to challenge people's conventions and create new outlooks on things, such as a Museum that they were commissioned to build. Instead of a building that would house the history of the area, they use this iconic milk float again. They created a portable time capsule/ display hub. They even produced 2D paper frames that people could used to display their historical possesions with throughout the town. I think this was such an inventive idea, but I’m not sure if my descriptions are doing it any justice. By taking this approach, they were able to create something more than a museum; it was more personal because the town was able to take an active role in the development of the museum. Then came our turn to put all of out experience to the test…the assignment, set by Andreas, was to come up with a event within King Cross, for the public. Antony agrees, I was the competitive one, and so this seemingly friendly assignment, turned into a full on competition.
In the end, Antony came up with a community food market, which would replace the old Charlton Market, beyond it former glory. As this one pulls on all of the community to take an involvements, food that was grow and produced locally and cooking session, where people are able to teach the next generation to cook, whilst creating a closer sense of unity. His slogan was 'Culture through cooking'. In all honest I thought this was a winner.
My idea (in as little detail as possible) was to create an annual, one week event were college graduates were able to exhibit there works on the street corners of Kings Cross. Which would build the exhibitors confidence and could result in design based jobs for them, which as a result, could lead to an alternative future to university. Whilst being be a great tourist attraction for the area. This street exhibition week would not just be art based, it would take on a festival vibe, as during the night there would be live music, food, students, and dancing. In the end, there was no real winner as Andres chose my idea and Ruby chose Ant's, soo Diplomatic! In all fairness, both ideas were great and it was a fantastic day!