Thamesmead is a strange place. Formerly on military land in south London, this estate was considered to be a huge solution to overcrowding issues in the 1960s, and an opportunity to create a Utopian community using state of the art architectural technology. The vast estate was cast in concrete and it wasn't long before social problems emerged, owing in large part to the complete lack of amenities, social infrastructure, and paucity of transport options. Today, the population of Thamesmead stands at around 30,000, and these people are living in the shadows of gang issues that wracked the estate in the 80s and 90s, along with the broken promises from private investment and the council. My visit earlier in the year was nothing but pleasant, bumping into nice people and enjoying some of the new green spaces and shopping structures. Thinking about how the perception of the concrete environment has changed since Thamesmead's construction, I wanted to capture a sense of tension around the promise of architectural plans and the reality of their construction. This print is a fractured view of two scenes at Thamesmead, put through different prisms to create a window into how we relate to modern architecture.
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Tadhg CaffreyI'm an Irish printmaker, living in North London and focusing on urban landscape, construction and abstract geometry. My first name sounds like "tiger" without the last bit.
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February 2018
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