Place to Remember

About

ASC Gallery is happy to present work generated from a local community project including a collection of oral histories and artwork.

Thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery and Care Home Charity Anchor, Art in the Park has been working with the community to collect oral histories of stories focusing on four buildings in Walworth and, in what was once known as, North Camberwell. Local people, including those living in Anchor's Waterside Care Home, have also been creating artwork inspired by the recorded stories and archive images courtesy of Southwark Local History Library and Archive.

Heritage Project Manager, Julia Honess said, “We purposely chose very different buildings that would bring out a range of stories and emotions about the area's history and community: one that has stood the test of time - English Martyrs Church; one that's about to be demolished – Wendover (on the Aylesbury Estate); one that's changed its use - New Peckham Mosque (formerly St Mark's church); one that's no longer there - North Camberwell Radical Club. People from in their thirties to those in their nineties have been interviewing each other which means many different experiences of the area are represented. ”

A range of people have shared their fascinating stories connected with the buildings and the area. Jacqueline Shelton, now living in the Isle of Wight and whose family used the Radical Club when it was a working men's club remembers the area when it was known locally as 'the island'. Members of her family were married in St Mark’s Camberwell which Ali Huseyin, a carpenter by trade, later helped to transform from a derelict building into a welcoming mosque that, to this day, continues to embrace the building's Christian heritage. The project has also collected tales of Wendover that recall the delight of moving to bright and spacious flats after being squeezed in with the in-laws, and stories from English Martyrs Church, with its legendary processions, its significance in the area's Irish heritage and now a place of worship for the area's other communities too.

What has been so interesting is to see how people's experiences have overlapped and been layered into the fabric of the area, and the importance of particular buildings in the social history of the community and its collective memory.

The exhibition will be opened by the Mayor, Councillor Dora Dixon-Fyle on Tuesday 22nd March at 3pm at ASCGallery, The Chaplin Centre, Taplow House, Thurlow Stree, SE17 2DG. If you can't make it to the gallery, you can see the artwork and listen to the interviews online at http://artinthepark.co.uk/a-place-to-remember/. The interviews will also be place in Southwark Local History Library and Archive for posterity.

For more information please contact Julia Honess on 07960318055 or ASC Gallery on 02072747474.

Notes to Editors

About Anchor

Waterside is part of Anchor, England’s largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care to older people. With almost 40,000 customers in 1,000 locations, Anchor is a charity and England’s largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care to older people. For more information, including career and volunteering opportunities, visit visit www.anchor.org.uk. 

About Art in the Park
Art in the Park is a community arts organisation based in Burgess Park, Southwark. They deliver project- funded community-based visual arts projects and events and team-building events with people of different age groups, including a visual arts group with older people. For more information, visit www.artinthepark.co.uk