Being assigned to the Brixton area for this rough guide task was a bit of a disappointment at first. I had never actually visited Brixton before but i had heard a lot of negative things about it, mostly the high rate of crime in the area. So I went into this project with negative pre conceptions, this affected my enthusiasm towards the project at first but I learnt to challenge
these ideas and as it turns out i feel like i have learnt so much about Brixton in a very short time.
I took many photographs while out on the task, mainly around Brixton Market, Electric Lane, Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road. These places are the heart of Brixton. There is a wide variety of shops including butchers, clothes and fabric stalls, Fruit 'N' Veg stalls, International
foods supermarkets etc.
I went into an Asian and Afro Caribbean food supermarket, it's owned by a very nice old man called Ali.
He told me he had owned that shop for over 30 years selling food, his customers are from many different countries and most of them he knows personally as they had been buying from him for many years.
He said he was very happy in Brixton, it had become his home. He was very kind to let me take as many photos as i wanted to in his shop.
Brixton contains so much history, from the destruction of it from World War I and World War II, to the Windrush Generation in 1948 to the Riots in 1981 and 1985 and the Brixton Bombing in 1999 and much more....
Below is the link to a website that shows a photographic history of Brixton with a comparison of Brixton today:
Historical Events in Brixton explained in detail on wikipedia below:
Object
The first thing that i looked at was a stall selling cleaning products in Atlantic Road. All lined up and stacked neatly in order. Very attractive to the eye as there is so much colour, shape and pattern. Because of it's boldness it catches the eye.
Obviously the objects contain dangerous cleaning chemicals, it has a very artificial look to it. To me the way these objects look together reminds me of sweets, very pretty and colourful like you could almost imagine what it would taste like. The green objects could be the sour sweets!!!
I couldn't imagine my objects in a department store, it would look ridiculous. Department stores are classy and sell expensive designer items. My objects look Tacky and Tasteful at the same time, but not enough to be put in a department store or displayed in a gallery, it would almost be comical if you were to imagine so.
My next chosen image is from a fabric store in Brixton Market. The shop sells all sorts of fabrics and sewing accessories. I chose to look at African print fabric as it's a personal favorite of mine. The bold patterns and contrasting colours look amazing.
The patterns have been achieved by crackle batik and print. I feel like this close up image of part of the fabric looks like a piece of simple art in itself. you could frame it and hang it up on a wall. In fact I saw African print and textile work in the British Museum while I was there drawing for the collection project.
