During August 2018 Pelican Plus Tenants and Residents Association and the South London Gallery (SLG) hosted artist Angélica Teuta for a residency on Pelican Estate, bringing her collaborative practice from Colombia to Peckham for a summer of activities for local children and families.
Emotional Architecture is an ongoing community project that explores the idea that everyone needs to experience making and having shelter. Using recycled materials and DIY construction methods, Angélica Teuta has produced both temporary and permanent structures for communities across Colombia and now in the UK as part of her residency at the South London Gallery.
On Pelican Estate, Teuta applied a plumbing pipe technique that was developed during her time working in Comunas in Medellin to create a weather proof structure with local children and parents that grew over the course of four weeks during their summer break. The den remained on the playground outside of workshop hours to endure the exposure of daily wear and tear and was gradually personalised by the children through the addition of a VIP space, tunnel and ‘Rainbow Room’. While the structure was only temporary, through their collaborative work participants gained new skills and friendship.
In addition to workshops on Pelican Estate, Angélica Teuta led three Sunday Spot workshops building large scale blanket forts. Find out more about Emotional Architecture here.
Angélica Teuta, Emotional Architecture: Pelican Playgrounds, 2018, Pelican Estate. Photo: Andy Stagg
BIOGRAPHY
Angélica Teuta is a Columbian artist whose collaborative practice reflects upon time, space and how teaching affects our understating of these realities. She gives form to her ideas through creating installations featuring recycled materials, sound and projection. Often these site-specific configurations are constructed collaboratively with the different communities that she works with in Columbia and elsewhere. Her large-scale installations have been presented internationally and reviewed in numerous publications including Art Forum and Artnexus.
Teuta completed a Masters in Visual Arts at Columbia University (New York) in 2015. She has participated in several artist residencies including the Sommerakademie in Zentrum Paul Klee with guest curator Thomas Hirschhorn in Bern (Switzerland) and AZ West lead by Andrea Zittel and James Trainor.
Emotional Architecture: Pelican Playgrounds is part of Open Plan, a public art and education project by the South London Gallery and residents on Pelican, Elmington and Sceaux Gardens estates. To find out more about this project contact Jack James on 020 7703 6120. Open Plan is supported by the Freelands Foundation, with additional funds from Southwark Council’s Youth and Play Grant Programme, the National Lottery and other donors.