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Introducing Moonbow Margate

Platform7

The Moonbow Margate art intervention began quietly with a photography exhibition in a derelict cafe, behind dirty windows. Tensions were running high locally, with a large amount of vocal opposition towards the new Turner Contemporary art gallery. What follows was posted on the Platform-7 website before the project began in earnest, to set out the intention of the intervention.

This blog post was originally posted on Jun 17, 2011 6:58 pm, view here

Introduction

Moonbow Margate is a temporary café performance bar space in a derelict shop on a derelict parade in Cliftonville, Margate, within 4 minutes walk of the new £18m Turner Contemporary Gallery.


Running from June to September 2011, the space will become a representation of change that often takes place following art-led regeneration and will attempt to become a reflective of the way local people view and interact with this change.

The ward in which the café is located is one of the most deprived in the UK. Unemployment is above the national average and the area has a large overseas population.

The Intervention

Operating as a functioning café bar the intention is to use live performance and art exhibitions to explore differing aspects of the physical, emotional, political and communal change that takes place in an area designated for art-led regeneration. The space will engage with the ideas of shifting demographics, culinary tastes, housing stock and commercial investment, affordability, change resistance, displacement, community, apathy, culturalism, memory and nostalgia.

Entering The Narrative

It is accepted that by creating this space, even for a short period of 3 months, it will be embedding itself within the narrative and the ripples will be a disruption to the order of any change already taking place. In an attempt at mitigation, the project will become user dependent over the period with customers, viewers, artists and commentators influencing the direction of the space.

Performance Planning

Initially, exhibitions and performances will be pre-selected by Platform-7 using existing artists on the portfolio. This will set the scene for those unfamiliar with the project approach and create conversation. What follows will become contingent on those interested in becoming part of the project in a passive or active form.

Cafe From The City Exhibition

The first exhibition, Café from the City, by photographer Paul Halliday, is a series of photos of the people working for a small independent coffee and venue bar chain in South London in 2005. The exhibition has been displayed in the café window from the day the agreement was made to rent the space. For the first two weeks the images were seen through dirty windows, a deliberate decision. The images appearance had the affect of people stopping briefly to view as they passed this otherwise deserted spot. When the windows were cleaned, many more people stopped to view and many others returned to having a second look. Comments centred on the sharpness, quality and composition of the images, yet at the time of writing, little has been mentioned on the subject of the images.

Gandhi In London Exhibition

The second exhibition is Gandhi in London 1931// Noakhali 1946: Exploring the Spaces Inhabited by Mahatma Gandhi, by Saif Osmani with kind permission of the Gandhi Foundation. Using paint on textiles, the work explores a number of aspects in relation to poverty, community disunion, displacement and historical contexture. By linking the chalk found on the beachfront Saif is attempting to forge links with Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha (non-violent Salt March) of 1930. Presenting these paintings in a communal setting, inside a place that resonates a feeling of displacement for the artist, and who used to visit Margate as a child, the exhibition hopes to create a sense of a shared history.

“Exploring The Spaces Inhabited by Mahatma Gandhi” by Saif Osmani

Matter Exhibition

The third exhibition by Jonathan Polkest presents Matter, a series of paint and textile images considering the origins of seaside communities. This presentation explores the visit of the stranger to the seaside. Many seaside towns often mask their own sense of community by immersing themselves in the idealized version of the tourist, even though tourism could be seen as a constructed ideal, created to benefit the same community it now deludes.

The Tide Sweeps In Poetry Response

During this exhibition, Alarms and Excursions will present The Tide Sweeps In. The tide sweeps in, bringing with it prosperity and complacency. When the tide goes out it washes them both away again and sweeps in with a new imperative, survival. Who comes to Margate today and how are they different to yesterday’s visitors?

Community Mapping

Platform-7 will begin the first of its community mapping events by presenting Jonathan Polkest Draw Me/Tenda Ve a popular participatory one day event that allows passers by to draw their friends via the lens of a camera obscurer. This event will begin a 4-year project to map the changing faces of Cliftonville.

What follows will be user determined with the next exhibition by an artist living or working in Margate.

Find out more about Moonbow Jakes in London here

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