Join us for a creative workshop combining photography, AI and ceramics to test out ideas to improve Croydon’s build environment. Led by the local artist and photographer Lina Ivanova, this series builds on work Lina has been doing over the past 6 months working with local businesses and incoming / migrant communities.

We’ll focus in on routes through West Croydon and London Road down to Wandle park to test ideas of how we could create a cleaner, greener, safer and more welcoming environment in these areas of Croydon Town Centre.

What we’ll do:
Starting at the Croydon Urban Room, we’ll take a walk together through these areas, documenting the key spaces through guided photography, exploring:
– How can the example projects shown on the project cards work in Croydon, what local problems could they address, what aspects are most important?
– Which parts of the ‘big moves’ shown in the diagrams are the most important?

We’ll then regroup at the Croydon Urban Room, using AI and Photoshop to manipulate our photographs taken on site and the project cards, adding elements that reflect our collective vision for a better community, with urban design specialists on hand to help us shape plans which are realistic.
– How can we make these spaces cleaner, greener and safer to inhabit and travel through?
– How can we retain a sense of community and belonging?
– How do they match what the community wants?

We will then move to a hands-on approach, imagining our final approaches in a clay model of the Wandle Park to West Croydon area which will be finished, fired and glazed by Lina & Turf.

Free and open to all; please click through to the Eventbrite page to book a free space so we know how many people to expect!

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Croydon Council is creating a new strategy to underpin the regeneration being planned for the town centre. A series of creative activities provide opportunities for the community, businesses and partners to get involved. This workshops is facilitated by local arts charity Turf Projects who are part of a multi-disciplinary team led by We Made That, working with Croydon Council in partnership with the GLA. The engagement is taking place from November 2023 into Autumn 2024.

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