I was stuck inside my house. Full of ideas. Out of energy.
I live in Croydon but I did not know how I truly related to Croydon. I can’t access Croydon, I haven’t been there much, I don’t know what it is like.
In early 2021, I worked with ArtPress [our youth art collective in Turf Projects] and Araba Aduah [a local filmmaker] to create a film for Historic England about Croydon high street. During production my family and I caught COVID-19, and I was unable to leave my house for the rest of the project, also due to chronic fatigue syndrome and my disabilities.
While I was brainstorming what I wanted to do for Propagate This, I realised my main point of reference for outside my house, Croydon and further, was Google Maps – specifically Google Maps Street View.
I decided that I would use google maps and a few other websites as my art mediums. Online mediums are really important to my art practice, as I can’t always access or use traditional mediums. I used Google Maps and another website for street names, creating sentences out of “places I’d been online”, to explain why “real life” isn’t always accessible [for me].
I became truly passionate about art existing natively online, justified in its own space.
You can view my piece with this link:
Street View
What is your native environment?
One reply on “Street View”
A theatre! Whether it’s in the audience, in the wings, or best of all: onstage performing- I feel most like myself when I’m in someone else’s story.