‘BREAKTHROUGH’: The latest Purley Mural by Hanna Benihoud
All Photography by Tim Jobling
The Purley Panel feel passionate about trying to improve our High street and with council cutbacks we looked for other funding avenues to bring positive changes to Purley, we applied for and were delighted to win funding from ‘The Mayor For London’s High Streets for all challenge’.
This first round of funding was to enable us to reach out to the local community and ask them what they wanted for Purley High street. We did this in a number of ways and gained community lead insight from the various demographics within the area.
We ran a survey, held a fun day, hosted coffee mornings at local nurseries and care homes and ran school assemblies and workshops.
Through our engagements it was clear that locals wanted to see a better-looking High Street and ART was something that came up multiple times, particularly with the younger generations.
It’s worth knowing that Croydon as a borough has London’s largest population of 15-34 year olds, with half of Purley’s population being under 44.
It was also clear that the community wanted their High street to be safe and accessible, particularly one in which women and young people felt safe.
Following our winning application for a second round of funding, we ear marked a percentage of this to be spent on some public art. Our workshops had shown us that not only did the community want art but they wanted art with a positive message.
The Purley Strategic Regeneration Framework released back in 2021 also identified that some of the key connections from the station to the high street were fractured, inadequately lit and created an environment that people did not feel safe in.
These were thoughts also mirrored by the community and the laneway that runs as a main connection from Purley station to the High street was frequently mentioned as being dark, dank, dirty, unsafe and used infrequently. The community felt it was out of bounds, especially women who commented that they avoided it, even in the day time.
With comments like:
I avoid it as it doesn’t feel safe and is too dirty
I hate going through it as it doesn’t feel safe and there is a bend in the middle, so you can’t see who is coming from the other direction
I never use it, I’d rather walk the long way around
I don’t use it in the daytime let alone night
We decided this was an opportunity to improve this laneway and make it more accessible for all and brighten up the experience of moving through Purley and encourage more use. We were delighted to commission Hanna Benihoud, with her vast experience in creating public art murals, to produce some art within this space for us.
Hanna began her engagements with the community by hosting the PURLEY PATCHWORK-ART WORKSHOP, held at Purley library, during a Festive Fair that had been organised by the Panel.
It was an opportunity for Hanna, to engage with locals and obtain some inspiration for the art that could go in this space.
This was a drop-in workshop and anyone attending the Festive Fair could take part, it proved very popular, and younger children in particular really enjoyed making their patchworks. Hanna was able to take away some amazing patchworks and noticed that a few particular themes stood out-Nature, Strength and Princesses.
This helped her to develop some key concepts for the mural-such as female empowerment, being unapologetically feminine but fierce and giving her an initial mural concept of a matriarchal figure guiding the way through the alleyway.
With the feedback collated through this workshop and with all previous engagement data collected and women’s safety being such an important, relevant and topical issue, we reported our findings to our funders, the GLA, who fully supported the focus of safety for women and girls and it was decided that we would hold a second ALL FEMALE WORKSHOP.
Again, held at the library we advertised the COLLAGE WORKSHOP-PURLEY POSTERS, purely for women and girls, on the various local social media pages and it was incredibly well attended, with the youngest attendee being 7 and the eldest in their sixties.
This workshop would enable Hanna to develop characters and further ideas, drawing on themes from the previous workshop. Images of the laneway site were used as part of the posters-we thought about how we wanted to feel and what we would like to see in that space and let our creative juices flow. Over 30 amazing collage posters were created on the day and everyone at the workshop thoroughly enjoyed the experience and process of making the collages, we used an abundance of media including an array of magazines and books from vintage to current.
It was an incredibly successful workshop full of insightful ideas that gave Hanna some amazing inspiration. It was also a really wonderful and rare opportunity for women and girls in Purley to come together and be creative.
Some Key themes that came from theses inspirational and thought-provoking posters, included-Inclusivity, women working together, light in darkness, power and colour.
When Hanna unveiled her final proposal to us as a panel, we were blown away-the mural was bold and strong with this powerful image of two women pulling apart the wall to flood the area with light and colour.
The design, titled ‘Breakthrough’ as now been installed and is something quite unique and fresh for Purley but most importantly it has been created purely from the inspiration, creativity and feedback of the local community. It conveys such a positive message of female empowerment-exactly what our community asked for!
With the bright art work on the floor and additional lighting and projectors that bring the alleyway alive at night, it has transformed this alleyway into an accessible and pleasing space to pass through and encourages everyone-male, female, young and old to walk through it and enjoy a very different experience to what it was previously.
All Photography by Tim Jobling
‘BREAKTHROUGH’ ART FEATURES ON BBC NEWS
The newly installed laneway artwork has been positively received by the community and Purley Panel are delighted that BBC news has done a feature on it.
