Elephant & Castle: Memory and Place

Memory and Place, a durational performance created in collaboration between the People's Bureau (artist duo Eva Sajovic and Rebecca Davies), Siobhan Davies Dance and Entelechy Arts, sited in the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. In response to a significant redevelopment of Elephant & Castle, the People's Bureau teamed up with Siobhan Davies Dance and Entelechy Arts to collate memories and stories from local residents. Following creative gatherings these ideas were woven into a durational public work performed together with the participants in the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. This project was supported by The Peter Minet Trust, Southwark Council, Arts Council England, Delancey and United St Saviour’s Charity. The People's Bureau is an artist-led art project based in a dedicated shopping cart in the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. It is about exchange of skills, needs and works like a people's university and a museum of local culture. The overarching aim of the project is to create a pool of collective local knowledge through exchange, a supporting network of different skills and to draw attention to diversity and existence of different economies in Elephant & Castle. It is also in the process of collating a database of all the cultural/art projects that have taken place in the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre since it came into existence in 1965. By working from a mobile cart the project will be able to travel within the area and beyond to celebrate the cultures of Elephant & Castle past and present and to connect with communities from further afield. The ambition is that, in the future, the cart will return to the newly built Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, thus creating the link connecting the old and the new Elephant & Castle. The pilot was supported by Tate Modern and is now continued with the support of Delancey