People's Bureau .... continued ...
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.
We hoped that working with Delancey would present opportunities for influence. However, some of their more recent actions have caused us to question that position which makes us concerned and in particular we:
· acknowledge the tension between the ‘belief system’ of corporate capital, and the values of social capital and the global commons which underpin the People’s Bureau.
· recognize the risk that in co-operating with a developer such as Delancey (including by receiving funding) we are co-opted to their purposes.
· suspect that Delancey is more concerned with creating the appearance of community engagement and consultation, than with its substance.
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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.
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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.