Peckham Promenade

Peckham Promenade will take inspiration from the characters, lives and daily interactions of the people living, working in and visiting Peckham’s bustling Rye Lane. Parris will depict the stories she encountered whilst conversing with local residents and traders on the busy street. A long and colourful streetscape will be applied directly to the gallery walls depicting the rich culture of everyday life in Peckham’s vibrant town centre, whilst a video piece will animate some of the conversations Parris has had during a series of digital portraiture and animation workshops with Year 10 students at Harris Academy Peckham.

This unique location-specific artwork developed throughout 2015, when Parris took to the streets of Peckham to meet local businesses, traders and shoppers with whom she struck up a relationship. It was from here that her digital portraits came to life, depicting the characters that she met on her travels and committing their individual take on Peckham to ‘virtual canvas’ as it were, only to be redrawn back onto the gallery walls. Next summer the work will be painted onto its final destination: the walls of the Rye Lane – Choumert Grove pedestrian corridor. In total a full 60 metres of street scenes have been created, a small selection of which will be shown in this exhibition.

This observational exploration of Peckham’s identity was the starting point for a series of digital portraiture and animation workshops that were led by Parris with Year 10 students at Harris Academy Peckham, the results of which will be featured within the main exhibition.

Emily Druiff said:

“An intuitive sense of character and place is embedded in Janette’s practice and I’m very excited to see how having these artworks full scale within the gallery will bring Rye Lane to life for our visitors. Her work is colourful and humorous and will no doubt offer a new and varied insight to the rich cultural life of Peckham.”

Janette Parris said:

“I’m delighted to be exhibiting at Peckham Platform, as it gave me the chance to meet and work with the people in the area and portray their lives. A big part of my work is about highlighting the everyday. I wanted to depict the familiar and often enjoyable experience of popping to the shops in Peckham.”​

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