Reclaim Space: flat 70 collab with JCDecaux for London-wide Exhibition of Black Artists

The latest project from one of Elephant Park’s own retailers has generated massive online buzz from magazines such as It’s Nice That, A2.O Mag and Frieze Magazine, for its latest public arts exhibition, ‘Reclaim Space’, which celebrates Black artists in Elephant and Castle today.

Launched last month on March 22 and running over the course of a fortnight, Elephant and Castle community hub flat 70 founders Anthony and Senam Badu’s celebration of the work of 15 contemporary African and Caribbean visual artists found its home on the digital billboards of JCDecaux across South London.

Like the silver ‘70’ furnishing the storefront of their premises in Elephant Park, the exhibition repurposed the everyday to convey a message far more personal yet wide-reaching than first meets the eye.

“We are a non-profit, black-led family of artists, cultural members of the local community,” they told A2.O Magazine who interviewed them about the project. “Our primary goal will always be holding space so that the contribution this community makes to society is recognised and valued. Currently, it’s too easy for our community’s contribution to be devalued, erased or co-opted.”

Such were their feelings when they chose the name flat 70 for their Elephant and Castle community hub, the flat number of the nearby home where they spent their formative years. In the two metal digits found on almost every front door across the capital, and indeed the country, they saw what others often don’t: a symbol of the symbiotic relationship between a community, its people, and particularly its artists; how they can inspire and shape Elephant and Castle today. Marginalised groups make up a large and often underestimated part of this equation.

As a result, their decision to forego traditional exhibition spaces in established institutions was entirely by design. “We wanted to take up public space, this abundant potent resource and give it back to the people who inspire us on the daily: Black artists,” transcribe Munyang Tengen & Elikem Logan from their conversation for A2O.

The artists whose work was displayed on JCDecaux’s screens – Edward Lobo, Akeelah Bertram, Ethel Tawe, Ajamu X, Heather Agyepong, Adama Jalloh, Chiizii, David Alabo, Sierra Nallo, Kunti Dabo, Chris Adu, Hanson Akatti, Sierra Nallo, Jacob V Joyce, Hamed Maiye and Lucy Adjoa Armah – comprise the flat 70 family, some local to Elephant and Castle and some residing across the African continent and Caribbean archipelago.

What unifies them all, say the Badus, is a common, essential thread back to Africa; a connective mindset which encourages mutual support in environments not traditionally tailored for those outside of the art world’s established circles. To do so, they’re looking to build on their partnership with JCDecaux who mediate advertising the world over.

“If the response to Reclaim Space can be this positive from just our postcode in Elephant & castle, who knows what the impact could be on a larger scale.”