Witnessing Loss
Drawing and Urban Regeneration
Abstract
This paper is a practice-led account of the relationship between lost city spaces, post-war redevelopment in London and drawing as a method of witnessing. The motivation and purpose of this paper is to critically analyse and reflect on the connection between selective British post-war drawing of the destroyed and regenerated urban environment and my own practice as an artist. I have used as a case study my on-site drawings of Elephant and Castle in south-east London, an area I have lived in for the last twenty years. Recording and making visible what is destroyed, forgotten and lost in the repeated rupture and transformation of the area, during the latest cycle of regeneration. I have combined my practice as a research method with urban theory, cultural geography and writing on drawing.
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