Local residents from the Lansbury Estate and visual artist Laurie Nouchka collaborated with Dr Tullis Rennie on an art installation that reflects the architecture and social spaces of the area.

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A composer from City, University of London has worked with residents of a well-known housing estate to create a new audio-visual art installation.

Dr Tullis Rennie developed visual artwork with accompanying music and sound recordings at the Lansbury Estate, with his art collaboration Walls on Walls.

The project reflects the architecture and social spaces of the estate and Chrisp Street Market.

It was supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) provided through City.

Dr Rennie, of the Department of Music, said: “The practice as research that I do with Walls on Walls works directly with non-professional participants in communities across London.

“This ongoing project aims to develop questions and methods that address how the benefits of collaborative composition might be understood in terms of reflexive ethnographic-documentary practice, as well as within creative arts.”

Listen to the audio element of the artwork

https://soundcloud.com/wallsonwalls/chrisp-street-market-lansbury-estate

The work was part of a V&A project that saw a “micro-museum” installed in an unused market unit. Its aim was to explore the importance of the Lansbury Estate as “a microcosm of planning ideas for London”.

Dr Rennie and artist Laurie Nouchka, his partner in the Walls on Walls collaboration, worked with traders at Chrisp Street Market and people in the community.


Final-year undergraduate music student at City, Olivia Harris, volunteered her time towards the project to gain experience of community-engaged arts.

The City lecturer added: “Together, we made field recordings, interviews, sketches and took photographs, and spent a lot of time discussing the history, current identity and possible futures of the market and surrounding estate, which is currently in the final planning stages of new redevelopment.

“We then co-designed and collaboratively produced both the audio and visual elements of the piece.”

The artwork was launched at a panel discussion event, in which the Walls on Walls duo both participated.