The art of Peckham

After all the gallivanting of late I was pretty excited to have a weekend kicking about in London – especially now that summer has announced itself with ferocious good will.

This last weekend has been about two things mostly: Peckham. And Art. And not just because I had to work on Saturday afternoon…

Bold Tendencies, 2013

As all weekends do, this one kicked off on Friday evening. I’d managed to guilt Lovely Boy into joining me for post-work drinks in Peckham. His “but it’s just so…. far….” line didn’t really garner much sympathy. 

Me: “Oh you mean that journey that I make twice a day five days a week? That one? Too far? Really?”

Him: "...I'll meet you there." 

Journey-time aside he needn’t have worried. People have been saying for a year now that “Peckham is the new Shoreditch.” God is it ever. It’s so Shoreditch even the Fulham crowd feel safe to visit – I spied several upturned collars and pairs of boat shoes idling out of Peckham Rye train station while I waited for LB to arrive. Boy things have changed. And boy I feel smug because I legitimately work here.

Bold Tendencies, 2013

The hipster epidemic (which could also be the gentrification epidemic and/or the cheap rent means poor artists epidemic) has been ably assisted by the summer institution Bold Tendencies, an annual sculpture exhibition held on the top two floors of the Peckham Multiplex carpark that comes replete with Campari Bar and astonishingly good views of the city. No one really goes to Bold Tendencies for the art – which is a good thing or they’d be mightily disappointed. The allusions to culture just make the drinks taste better.

The view from Bold Tendencies. I spy....

After a couple of happy hours at Bar Story, under the railway arches, we headed for Bold Tendencies not to be seen but to see a performance by the Melodions Steel Orchestra. They were there as part of the four-day Copeland Book Market, promoting Jeremy Deller’s English Magic catalogue from his British Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The orchestra recorded the soundtrack to one of Deller’s video works in Venice, at Abbey Road no less, and it was without doubt a coup to have them perform in Peckham as part of the Book Market and it took the usual Bold Tendencies experience to a whole other level. Which is impressive considering we were already on the top floor.

Stalking Jeremy "white fishing hat" Deller

The calypso versions of everything from the Beatles to Bowie via ABBA had everyone on their feet and it was so joyous – and the evening so freaking balmy – that even the half hour wait for bloody drinks was tolerable. When London summer gets it right, it’s intoxicating. 

The Melodian Steel Orchestra at Bold Tendencies, 19 July 2013

On Saturday though, I was bloody well back at Bold Tendencies for work because we’re making a short film about self-publishing and were interviewing the lovely guys who run the book market. The work itself wasn’t the issue – it was the work on a sunny Saturday afternoon in London when I didn’t want to be doing anything more taxing that reaching for another glass of Pimms that was the problem. And I was grumpy about it. 

But because there was little I could do about it, I sucked it up and made the most of it, by stopping by the gallery to see artist Tom White’s off-site commission Public Address. White has been working with some of my colleagues in the education team, collaborating with children on the local estates to create a work in dialogue with the current main space exhibition exploring sound. 

Over a series of workshops, White and the kids used digital and analogue recorders to document the sounds they generated through play and exploration. Think singing, running sticks along metal fences and just generally generating ‘noise’ using the immediate architectural surrounds of Southampton Way estate. The film documenting some of these recordings is anarchic and innocent and life-affirmingly loud. But Public Address had a whole lot of other subtleties and statements to make.

Tom White, Public Address, 2013

A series of loud speakers attached to a large fence facing one of the taller blocks on the estate, these booming speakers projected the children’s play onto and literally at the building. It was a surprisingly beautiful case of being heard but not seen and an almost poetic lament about the invisibility of children and their inability to play freely – and loudly – outside the conventional constraints of an urban environment that bans ball games and much else besides.

Tom White, Public Address, 2013, Southampton Way Estate, Peckham.

A site-specific commission by the South London Gallery. 

There was something defiant about these speakers, like David staring down Goliath without having any sense of the magnitude of who and what Goliath might be in this instance. It’s a remarkably elegant work – for one made entirely of children’s chatter and creative play – and I was surprised at how much it moved me. It only ran for four Saturdays through June and July so I should probably thank work for dragging my arse to Peckham and giving me the chance to see it.

Sometimes the journey is the destination and I’m happy for Peckham to be mine most days of the week. Even the occasional Saturday.