The Aylesbury Estate as Home

This free display explores the Aylesbury Estate, a large modernist high-rise estate in South London, as home. It focuses on the history of the estate for its thousands of residents, from its utopian beginning in the late 1960s, to its emergence as a more ambiguous place in the 1980s, and current demolition and regeneration through photographs, architectural drawings, text and interviews with current residents.

Two artworks by Nadege Meriau will feature alongside the display: a metaphorical film that relates to the gradual unmaking of the modernist architectural dream and a sculpture involving artist-led community participation. The Aylesbury Estate as Home draws on an academic research project affiliated with the Centre for Studies of Home, a partnership between Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the Geffrye Museum. It is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, AHRC Creativeworks London and Queen Mary University of London.

Dr Richard Baxter is a Lecturer at the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. He specialises in modernist high-rise estates and is interested in the geographies of home, architecture and race.

Artist Nadege Meriau completed a MA at the Royal College of Art in 2011. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and was nominated for the Arles Discovery Award 2012 and Prix Pictet 2014. Central to her practice are the notions of growth, transformation, and the concept of dwelling. Working with lens-based media and sculpture, she explores the concept of home as material and imaginative space and the nurturing and destructive processes through which homes are made.