Sign of the Times (2012-2017)
By
Tinsel Edwards
A selection of modified estate agent signs, shown as a collection in the studio. Photo credit: Esther Raymond.
A body of artwork created in response to the housing crisis in London.
Having witnessed a generation becoming priced out of life in the capital, the social cleansing across housing estates and the rise in rough sleeping in London, I was driven to create a body of artwork which expresses my own personal frustration as a London resident, but also raises questions and explores the issues with housing that are impacting the lives of so many Londoners. Initially I created a series of small paintings inspired by imagery found in estate agent windows, advertising flats to rent. As time went on and the project developed, I began to collect anecdotal stories from people who told me of how the housing crisis was impacting them. Eventually I started to incorporate these stories into the work, I screen printed and painted over a collection of existing estate agent signs, subverting the familiar branding and changing the wording to tell the real stories about the impact the situation was having on people's lives. The collection of signs was exhibited at Dismaland in Weston-Super-Mare in 2015, following this I returned them to the streets where I had found them. Strategically leaving the signs in places such as at the old Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, the Carpenters Estate close to the Olympic Park and near to the Houses of Parliament. Later in 2015 I curated an exhibition called 'The Poor Door', inviting artists to submit work in response to the housing crisis, in 2017 I published a book about this body of work with Dunlin Press. The book 'Priced Out' is a personal and powerful look at the declining state of housing in the capital through the eyes of an artist.
“Tinsel has written a valuable social document… Priced Out reads like a dispatch from a war zone. Which, in a way, it is.”
“Edwards pulls no punches with a stark, poignant commentary on the capital’s rapidly rising house prices - estate agent signs liberated from the streets they litter and the language they peddle have been subverted to tell the stories that matter more: those of the cities residents”
More information: https://tinseledwards.com/#/signs-of-the-times-1/
