A new heritage trail for Somers Town launches this September.
Look out for a new artworks in Phoenix Road.
Launch of new trail ‘Art in everyday life’ is a a contemporary reimagining of artworks on estates of the St Pancras housing.
The artworks in the public realm are a contemporary reimagining of missing unique working class heritage, giving prominence to unheard stories of diverse working class people in an area facing destabilizing change.
A Space for us People’s Museum is proud to launch with an event and workshop days in September 2025.
Thursday evening 18 September – Private View Evening – Guided walk 5.30 & Talks by artists from 6.30pm
Saturday afternoon 2-4pm Family friendly Guided walk followed by ceramics Workshop in Basil Jellicoe Community Hall, Origin
Hanging the stories Exhibition
Hanging the stories will exhibit all the work towards the project, including drawings, co-design and consultation to show our thinking and process, including work by architects editcollective, artist Camilla Bliss and CSM.
We are re-creating a Devil finial with the help of artist Dr Melanie Jacskon of the RCA London.
Art in everyday life trail
A Space for us People’s Museum will tell our #workingclass stories and save neglected #GilbertBayes art from the area to create a contemporary heritage trail, thanks to a grant for #UntoldStories, from the @MayorofLondon’s fund @LDN_Culture Part of the Diversity in the Public Realm initiative.
Design is led by all female architecture edit
15 stops marked by plaques will be installed around Somers Town at key points on properties, and three new contemporary artworks in Phoenix Road.
It was co-designed with the local community, included work on different cultures folk stories with the Bangladeshi Lotus Group
There is a digital Trail which includes AR models, which can be accessed on phones
GLA UNTOLD STORIES – Diversity in the Public Realm featured the project in 2024
Gilbert Bayes art for St Pancras Housing in Somers Town.
This art in everyday life is a legacy of a 1930s visionary housing association, whose motto ‘Housing is not enough’ placed community public and art in housing: decorative birds, ships and other ‘finials’ topped drying posts where washing was hung so “people could see them going about their everyday business:
“truly ‘art in everyday life’ by socialist artist Gilbert Bayes, part of a pioneering housing project … putting art and beauty together with social housing” –Wayne Hemmingway, designer
For background on the ‘lost’ Bayes artworks, please see news for more on our campaign to save the Bayes – Save our Art!
Save our art! campaign
A Space for us People’s Museum restituted 2 pieces as the CNJ reported on our ‘saving art’ but over 160 pieces are still missing.
For any queries, please contact diana@aspaceforus.club
A Space for us People’s Museum
With thanks for the further support of T-Factor/EU and Digital Makers Collective of CSM; Camden Council, Origin Housing, and Local Globe to help bring this project to life.
BIOS
Camilla Bliss
Camilla Bliss (b.1989, London) regularly draws on motifs found in historical craftsmanship, myth and folklore to communicate ideas about the modern world. She utilises a wide range of materials, placing an importance on the handmade and the sculptural, yet at the same time referencing our relationship to digital technology.
Recent selected shows include Hawks in Her Hair at Alice Black Gallery, London (2021); Final, Not Over – Again, Unit 1 gallery, London (2021); Fertile Laziness, Platform Southwark, Pending at San Mei Gallery, London (2021); Window Project, Gazelli Art House, London (2019); Dirty Hands & Revelations at Standpoint Gallery, London (2019); We See You, We Hear You at Hospital Club, London (2018), Summer Exhibition at Royal Academy, London (2018) and Threads Salon at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2018), Closed Curtain (solo) at Barbican Arts Group Trust, London (2017).
Editcollective
Edit is a feminist architecture collective working on design and research projects, interested in the enduring biases and hierarchies embedded in the built environment and we have designed projects spanning from objects and film to exhibition design and public spaces. Architects, project managers, set designers, tutors and researchers, they have combined experience across projects of all scales and stages.
Their work has been exhibited at the 2019 Oslo Architecture Triennale, MAXXI in Rome, the Design Museum, Akademie der Kunste and during the London Design Festival, among others. Our clients include the Barbican Centre, Science Gallery London, Camden Council, Farrell Centre and A Space for us People’s Museum Somers Town.
Melanie Jackson (UK)
Melanie Jackson (UK) is an artist and educator who works with modes of non-fiction storytelling through assemblages of sculpture, writing and moving image. She lives and works in London and teaches at the Royal College of Art.She stages different tactics of representation: mimicry, documentary, myth fabrication, science, performance, humour, animation, political commentary, music, installation, craft and the cultivation of aesthetic delight.
Selected solo exhibitions include:
Aspex, Chapter, San Mei Gallery Block 336, Grand Union, Primary, Banner Repeater, the Drawing Room, Flat Time House, John Hansard Gallery and Matt’s Gallery.
She has exhibited internationally including at the Wellcome Collection, eva+, (Ireland), DRF Biennale, (Osaka, Japan), ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, (Karlsruhe, Germany).