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  • Elephant memory

King, Simon, 2018, Journal Article, Elephant memory Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 10 (2). pp. 249-266. ISSN 1753-5190

Abstract or Description:

This article is a non-chronological account of the documentation and mapping of walks over an eighteen-month period around Elephant and Castle, a part of South East London that, via its designation as a prime ‘regeneration opportunity area’, is experiencing a rapid but problematic transformation. The original group walk is constructed performatively in the shape of a spatial and temporal narrative, i.e. the solving of a mystery prompted by an American magazine’s 1941 photograph of bomb-damaged Sayer Street SE17, held in the Imperial War Museum archive. Via this and other textual fragments, walkers seek to reconstruct a history and determine the original coordinates of a once lost but now recuperated street. Subsequent walks, taking place either side of the recent conflagration of Grenfell Tower, become more dialogic as discussion turns to the social and political consequences of London’s land grab. Key motifs emerge also: parallel lines of thinking, e.g. Lend Lease 1941, Lend Lease Ltd 2017, mapping – personal and archival, quotation, ruins, the punctum in the image and the metaphor of place holding.

Official URL: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/j...
Subjects: Creative Arts and Design > W900 Others in Creative Arts and Design
School or Centre: Other
Identification Number or DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp.10.2.249_1
Additional Information:

© Simon King, 2018. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Volume 10, Number 2, 1 May 2018, pp. 249-266, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp.10.2.249_1.

Date Deposited: 15 Apr 2020 11:05
Last Modified: 15 Apr 2020 11:05
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/4353
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