For those of you that don’t know ‘Animapping Lambeth’ is a participatory art project we are running at The Portico Gallery on the first three months of FEAST. The project is about using the voices of the people to create three animated maps of Lambeth – one at each event.
The first event went down a storm, with 61 people dropping by on the day to animate our giant cyanotype map of Lambeth by printing their face onto their favourite place on the map.
Each person also used one of the old typewriters to hammer out a few words about why that place was special to them which formed a key of numbered places that linked up to their numbered faces.
The day started out fairly calmly but an hour in the space was alive and buzzing with people of all ages eager to make their mark on the map. And what a mark they made. By the end of the day we had a map covered in different faces with clusters of people around the hotspots like Brockwell Park, West Norwood Cemetery and Southbank.
We made the map by piecing together scans of 18 old ordnance survey maps of the different areas of Lambeth from 1894. This historical element gave an interesting dynamic to the project as in some peoples cases their favourite places had not yet been built which sparked interesting conversations about how the use of the land of Lambeth has developed over the last 120 years. For others it was just fun having to navigate around landmarks on the map to find where the appropriate spot was.
Whether it was mud larking in the Thames at low tide or climbing on the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace, everyone has their favourite things to do in the area. SSeeing all those wonderful people and places come together on one animated map was a truly special experience that will keep me entertained with things to do for a long time.
With the next FEAST fast approaching, we’re now working hard on ‘Animapping Lambeth: Part 2’, which will be a series of workshops where participants will learn how to make ‘Van Dyke’ photographic prints from old archive images of Lambeth in 1900. These prints will be assembled to form a picture map of Lambeth.
There will be a limited number of drop in spaces for the workshops on the day but to sign yourself up and guarantee a space please email me with your name, mobile number and the time of the workshop you would like to attend. The times are: 11am-12am, 1pm-2pm, 2.30pm-3.30pm. Each workshop is FREE and there will be 8 places per workshop.
Ella Bryant – ellamarybryant{at}gmail{dot}com