Paper short abstract:

Elephant & Castle is well known as the biggest centre of the Latin American community in the UK. A proposal for the site's redevelopment is threatening their continued presence. This paper introduces my work as an illustrator drawing attention to the topographical imaginary of local residents.

Paper long abstract:

External visitors to Elephant and Castle have a visual experience that is dominated by the timeworn materiality of the physical space. As an illustrator I am able to draw attention to the topographical imaginary, the mental image of local residents, populated with associated stories, memories and experiences. In collaboration with Latin Elephant, a local charity that promotes the inclusion of migrant and ethnic groups in processes of urban change, I designed a participatory project structure, which resulted in illustrated outputs that speak of the vitality of the community.

In this paper I propose that images are performative rather than representational - in their act of existence they make and present the world they refer to. I argue that in carefully considered participatory project structures illustration has the potential to act as a catalyst, focal point and trace of collective world-making, lending marginal communities a voice to communicate with each other as well as external publics.

My work aims to visualises otherwise invisible social relations, perceptions and habitual uses of a place resulting in a graphic palimpsest of spatially grounded stories. The work materialises the social relations that contributed to its making, and subsequently speaks of them to others, as it encounters other audiences and publics. Illustration projects can facilitate 'making sense together' (Forester 1985), or materialise 'the wandering labour of sense' (Nancy 1997).