Lund Point By Beyond the Box Cultural Producers and Brendan Barry

In the summer of 2021 a group of young adults from east London, recruited through Beyond the Box, worked with artist Brendan Barry to transform four currently empty dwellings, in a 23-storey tower block on the Carpenters Estate at the edge of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Rooms in the empty flats were converted into a multi-lens camera obscura and rudimentary photographic darkrooms.

Together they created ultra-large format analogue photographic prints, which offer a unique perspective of the site where East Bank is emerging and the new V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum will open in 2024 and 2025 respectively. The work is proposed as an act of cultural democracy, reframing and inscribing a site through the lived experience of people living in east London. Beyond the Box co-design with young people, communities, and organisations to build more equitable places to live, work and play.

This work was created by Shirin Al'Rashid, Maia Ardalla, Doua Attafi, Condoleezza Baiden, Maddeline Balogun, Simone Casimiro, Tapiwa Cronin, Shirin Naveed, Aiden Nip, Fome Owuasu, Sumaya Rahman, Samreen Sabeer, Lucie Shackley and Seby Wright.

We would like to thank Saudat Adinani, Arbor Projects, Ivy Aubynn, Nick Clough, Egwolo Ekregbesi, Liza Fior, Catherine Greig, Deborah Heenan, Claudia Heidebluth, Catherine Ince, Jasmine James, Meneesha Kaur Kellay, Cat Macdonald, Navjot Mangat, Alice and Denis Power, Maud Sanciaume, Zofia Trafas White, Joe walker and Afia Yeboah for supporting the project and participants.

Lund Point was conceived and curated with V&A Research Institute Public Engagement Fellow, Matilda Pye and is a V&A East collaboration, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Populo Living.