“It’s a prison disguised as social housing”

A comment from one of the residents in West Ealing about the newly renovated Green Man Lane housing estate.

Using handmade typography to incorporate hidden imagery of the real estate block. Used as a screen printed experiment to become wallpaper for one of the flats. 

‘Grenfell Remembered’ 

Mixed media light installation using layers of parcel tape 

On Friday 6th October 2017 I asked around 80 people in West Ealing centre to look at a photo inside the newly built Green Man estate block, I asked them to tell me whether they thought the photo was from a prison or if it was social housing, they then had to put a jelly bean in the column which they thought was right. The overall result was quite shocking, more than half of the people though that the photo was taken from a prison block. There were also people who knew it was social housing but still put their beans into the prison column as they were shocked at how similar it looked to one. The activity almost acted as a form of revenge against the housing association, A2 Dominion and the council. It was also fascinating to see how many comments I received from the activity. A selection of their comments is shown below:

“It looks like a prison”

“There’s no difference!”

“That’s a really good point, shit!”

“Prisons look better than that”

“It’s a prison disguised as social housing”

“It’s gotta be social housing”

“Oh, I’ve no teeth!”

“It looks more like a prison but I think it’s social housing”

“Is it really social housing!?”

“I’ve lived there 3 ½ years, there’s no emergency service when something breaks like water leaks, A2 Dominion are VERY bad people! This is not a house it is a prison!”

“They’re quite nice!”

“We don’t want that!”

“It’s very like a prison!”

Rush hour