Nanny Goat Common

About

Made in the documentary tradition, the photo-based works on display in the rooms of the White House are a visual response to the Becontree Estate, in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. The students have responded to the brief in many diverse ways that include exploring family history, WW2 bomb-site locations, churches…and Elvis.

Commissioned by the London County Council (LCC) the Becontree Estate was constructed between 1921 and 1935 and was the world’s largest social housing estate. Built on 3,000 acres of green belt land, around 26,000 new homes provided accommodation for around 100,000 people, including returning war veterans and those bombed out of their East London homes. As the estate was built over a period of 14 years, its appearance consists of various styles of architecture. Over the history of the estate the appearance of the homes has altered, largely through Margaret Thatcher's Right-To-Buy scheme in the 1980s where residents could now own their homes for the first time and made them to look like they were not council housing. Notable residents included an ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, Terry Venables, Dudley Moore, and Alf Ramsey. Visitors to the estate included Mahatma Ghandi.

What was once a white British community when completed, the area has since provided settlement, permanently and temporarily, for a wide cultural denomination including African, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, and citizens from other EU countries. With the uncertainty of Brexit and free-movement in the UK, the future demographic of the Becontree Estate remains uncertain.

The exhibition, Nanny Goat Common is named after the common name given by local residents for the green outside the Civic Centre, the now Grade 2 listed former municipal building in Becontree Heath. 

In August 2016, Create London launched The White House, a new public space for art and social activity on Dagenham’s Becontree Estate. The White House invites artists to live at the house, make new art and join local people in creating the vision for this public building. Through collaboration with the Barking & Dagenham College Photography Department, The White House has provided a micro-residency and exhibition space as well as facilitating dialogues between the students and arts professionals, artists and The White House community. This project builds on The White House's commitment to creating opportunities for creative and professional development within the local community as well as supporting the development of new routes into the creative industries.

The final works are exhibited in the rooms of the White House, a working house in the heart of the community. Students were asked to consider how their photography may be displayed in a non-white cube space which alters how images are received and read by an audience.