UP Projects are working with artist and educator Andrew Brown to devise a series of creative workshops that will engage local people in shaping a public art strategy for a site of planned regeneration in Ilford’s town centre. Andrew is using photography to capture the imaginations of workshop participants, bringing to life the history of Ilford’s role in the advancement of photographic films and papers.
Ilford has a strong and historic relationship with innovation in photography. Ilford Limited, a world-renowned brand of film and photographic materials, was founded here in 1879. When the factory in Roden Street was demolished in 1976, the visual link between photography and Ilford as a place was broken. Today many people do not associate Ilford with photography, let alone the important role the town had for early photographers travelling the world documenting what they were encountering. They would often send their images back to London, to a population which would have known less about the diversity of the world that we know and celebrate in London today.
Today, the former site of Ilford Limited is currently a Sainsbury’s. Telford Homes are the developer of the site and are looking to ensure public art is embedded within their proposed public realm design. They commissioned UP Projects to prepare a strategy which is reflective of local identity and is relevant to the needs of people living in a rapidly changing urban environment. The workshops, led by Andrew Brown, will be seen as a starting point to establish early relationships and to set the scene for longer-term projects in relation to this site and the wider area.
The London Borough of Redbridge has partnered with UNICEF to become an accredited and international recognised Child Friendly Borough. This requires the Borough to make pledges and set policy supporting the rights and welfare of children. It is about children understanding their rights and also ensuring they have the ability and influence to shape the services affecting them. For this reason, the research and engagement in Ilford to date has given focus to young people and will include young facilitators helping to run the workshops in collaboration with Andrew. The resulting public art strategy will seek to support this theme and tie into existing Child Friendly policies which are helping to shape Ilford as it continues to undergo urban redevelopment.
More information about Andrew Brown can be found below.
Andrew Brown, Artist & Educator
Andrew Brown is an artist and educator based at SPACE Studios in Ilford. He uses analogue, digital and alternative photographic processes alongside soundscapes, documents and artefacts to explore the impact on communities of rapid changes in the built and natural environment in east London. He has lived in Ilford for 23 years and has a longstanding involvement with schools, further and higher education in the area, nationally and internationally.
