People’s Bureau is an installation in the Elephant& Castle shopping centre. Through skill exchanges the project activates individuals from local communities and collaborates with local organisations. The project collects evidence and makes visible the diversity of cultures, skills, networks and resourcefulness present in an area, currently undergoing a large-scale redevelopment that is likely to permanently displace local individuals, traders and organisations. People’s Bureau is intended as a rallying cry against the crude and merciless logic of corporate capital. It is intended to distill and to highlight:. 1) The role and function of public space and public commons. 2) The capacity of the community to self-organise. 3) Economic alternatives to cycles of consumption and destruction that, through emissions of gases, now threaten the future of life on earth. People's Bureau is Associate of Tate Exchange and will be based at Tate Modern (January - June2017), hosting a programme of exchanges and public discussions with other Associates and the public around the issues concerned with the ‘foundations of our city’. People’s Bureau is devised and produced by Eva Sajovic and Rebecca Davies. Their practices as artists centre on social engagement and participation. The People's Bureau has come about from the pair's many years of work in the area, collaboratively and individually – most of which is now represented on this website and under the umbrella of the People’s Bureau. People’s Bureau has received support from Delancey 2014-2016, Tate Modern and through collaborations with other partners from: Siobhan Davies Studios, ThePeter Minet Trust, Southwark Council, Arts Council England, Entelechy Arts, London College of Communication. * * * Rebecca: The Elephant is where I was born and grew up. The Elephant was my first home, and today I feel the Elephant is who I am. It is where I have worked (and made work about) over the last 8years. Challenging, tough, and I feel, important work that has affected my whole practice as an artist, working across the UK. Eva: I moved into the area when I first moved to the UK in 2001 and where I still live now. Elephant & Castle shopping centre provided me with a sense of belonging to a community I didn’t have at that point. To better understand this eccentric and vibrant place I started photographing and talking to people I met on a daily basis and that was an opening to becoming part of the community and also to better understand my experience as an immigrant. THANK YOU to Cate Trejos, Marina Commanduli and LatinAmerican Women's Rights Service, The Rockingham women, ATD 4th World, PaxtonTime Bank, Hourbank Peckham, PARC (Photography Archive Research Centre), Siobhan Davies Dance, Entelechy Arts, Peckham Print, Siriol Davies, Prof.Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, artists Shane Waltener, Rosalie Schweiker, Tal Drori, Saskia Pomeroy, Melanie King, Clare Charles, Corinne Silva, Emma Lofstrom, Morvin Mulgrew; Tate Modern, Mamouska and Bingo for their support with the pilot.
This is People's Bureau, Elephant Magazine. Since summer 2015 we have been collecting the Cultural Capital of Elephant&Castle by collating information about all the art and cultural projects which have taken place in the area over the past 50 years. If you know of a project you think should be included please get in touch: [email protected]
Today at the People’s Bureau. It was AMAZING! Egg decoration, herbal remedies, knitting, beading, massage, poetry reading, drawing, mapping local organisations, and rehearsal of PERFORMANCE (that will be performed in Sat, 2-5pm). With thanx to Mrs Bari (Rockingham Women) for the delicious curry lunch; Fabienne and Time Bank Paxton, Hourbank, ATD Fourth World, Siobhan Davies Dance, Entelechy Arts.
Lino printing with Rebecca, sketchbook making with Fabienne and decoration making with Yelitza! Accompanied by Bengali curry from the Rockingham women.
Thank yous: Yelitza for showing how to make beautiful decorations, Fabienne for sketchbook making workshop and a wonderful massage, Luz for reflexology, dancers and Entellechy Arts for facilitating and provocing dance, Rockingham Women (Nurun) for the delicious curry and to Becca for the lynoprinting.
Currently preparing our next People’s Bureau - 26 February - with a SURPRISE!
We’re starting the year with a packed programme! As part of Monday’s skills exchange, Rebecca and Eva will also be hosting a discussion around language - we want to know your thoughts and stories, in the language you want to speak in. We will also be providing lunch for all those who take part - a Bengali curry made by the Rockingham Women.
NOVEMBER’s People’s Bureau at Elephant & Castle shopping centre. This was all about bring and fix, reflexology, card game making, participatory dance and sing happening, sewing, language exchange and gardener’s advice.
People’s Bureau THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER at the Elephant. This one will be lively. Please come and JOIN IN. ADDED TO THE BILL!!! LAWRS bring us the wonderful LUZ and her reflexology session in the morning (11-1) and CAROLINA will be hosting an English/Spanish language exchange in the afternoon session (2-4). We hope to see you there.
Mythical creatures of past and future - with Emma Lofstrom
we are also working with Emma Lofstrom - join us at Tate Britain, Saturday 31 October, 2-4PM.
'In this workshop the participants will be shown how to blend drawing with collage techniques, and encouraged to experiment and explore new ways of using their imagination. Playing with ideas of future ecosystems, and the possibilities of biotechnology, the participants will be asked to invent new life-forms. Animals were the muses of the first human art and mark-making, and have since frequented myths, legends, fantasies and fiction. We will be looking at animals in a time of extinctions and transformations, and explore a diversity of new living creatures, mixing drawing with photos, textbook illustrations and naturalists’' discoveries.'
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