A housing estate due to be demolished at the end of the month was transformed into a work of art this weekend, attracting thousands of visitors.
Residents gathering at Market Estate on Saturday said they were “amazed” by the original art event held in their former homes, just north of Caledonian Road. David Kelly, who lived on the estate for 10 years, said the event had been overwhelming. “This is a small council estate that no one would miss, yet there was this great celebration.
“It made the estate seem much more normal. The estate has had a stigma for years but this showed people that residents were just a normal group of people living in Islington.”
Personal connections
Art installations filled 20 of the estate’s 271 flats and depicted lives of generations of former residents, and the durability of their memories.
Mr Kelly said he was surprised at how well the project’s 64 artists, who have worked at the estate for the last six months, had connected to his former home. “Everything related back to the estate,” he said. “They had included our lives in the work and there were these personal connections all around. Everyone was very moved, and they really added another layer of history to a very historic part of Islington.”
“Haunting”
An artist and Central St Martin’s graduate, Gadi Sprukt, came up with the Market Estate Project after becoming a temporary caretaker of the building in May 2009. The project was funded by the housing association, the Arts Council and various architectural firms.
Cecelia Darker from Hackney said: “We’ve been into all these different rooms that really get your mind thinking. It’s interesting seeing what they’ve done with all these funny little spaces.”
“I’m very pleased that they’re pulling them down because I don’t think I’d like to live in one of these. It’s haunting.”
“Problems with drugs and antisocial behaviour”
Mr Kelly agreed that it was time to move on.”I see demolishing the old blocks as progress,” he said. “The estate has had problems with drugs and antisocial behaviour for years, and there was no other solution we could imagine. ‘There was always going to be a celebration when the old estate was demolished and everyone would be in their new houses.”
The first tower was demolished three years ago, and the two final towers will be bulldozed at the end of March. Every Market Estate tenant will be placed in one of the 421 new flats built on the same plot or adjacent to the site.
