Created by local collective Garudio Studiage for Peckham Platform (Peckham Space) the exhibition presents large-scale, detailed line drawings of every single building on the street, left blank to be coloured in and customised by visitors, who range from local residents, school groups, students, artists and of course the shopkeepers themselves.
The illustrations filled the walls of the gallery and were feats of skill and patience. With over two hundred buildings that took up to five hours each to digitally draw, they showed the notoriously chaotic street in a startlingly grand and serene light.
As with many London areas it is difficult to appreciate the beauty of Rye Lane’s architecture among the plate glass of the high street chain stores, the music blasting from the butcher’s and the colourful bustle of daily life, but Garudio Studiage stripped the buildings of any commercial identity and simply represented what was actually there: a wonderful mix of solid, architecturally striking buildings.
Khan’s Bargain Superstore (the Garudio’s favourite inspirational shop) suddenly transformed from a busy fruit and veg/mobile phone/household novelty store into a monumental tile-fronted modernist block, standing in silent authority amongst the heavy Victorian details of its neighbours. Even the blandness of the Aylesham Shopping Centre becomes beautiful when reduced to fine black lines.
But the joy of the exhibition came also in its thrill of potential. Abandoning the bureaucracy of town planning, it was left entirely to the public to populate the buildings with whatever shops they want. And the best part was, they didn’t have to be feasible. A brief vox-pop during the research stages revealed desires for a shop full of real live tigers, a magical shop that changes every time you walk in, and an all singing all dancing greasy spoon entirely staffed by 80s pop icons such as Five Star and Samantha Fox.
While the exhibition is long gone, you can still purchase a colouring book featuring some of those iconic buildings from the Garudio Studiage shop.
