About STREET view
STREET view was produced in Autumn 2021 as part of our first month-long residency at Turf Projects, on an initiative called Propagate This.
This was the start of our more formalised creative partnership – Bea and Jill – something that we were using the residency to explore and develop. It was also a project to think about Croydon, its challenges, community and what spaces were available and needed.
Bea has had ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) since a young age. It impacts our lives every day and our relationship is much more entwined and intimate than a typical mother/teenager. Working together as a creative practice is a new and evolving journey for us.
Whilst brainstorming for the project, Bea realised that their main point of reference for outside our home – for Croydon and further – was Google Maps, specifically Street View. From when Bea was first ill with ME/CFS aged 7, we like to “drive around” in Street View when we aren’t able to physically leave the house.
Early in 2021 through ArtPress (the youth collective at Turf Projects), Bea had worked with Araba Aduah (a local filmmaker) to create a film for Historic England about Croydon’s high street.
During production, our family all caught Covid and Bea was very unwell. This caused an ME/CFS relapse that left them unable to leave our house for the rest of the project so most of their research and contributions to the film were originated in Google Maps’ Street View.
Online art mediums are very important to Bea’s art practice as they can’t always use or access traditional mediums.
Bea decided they would use Google Maps again as their start point for Propagate This, creating a digital art piece – part illustration, part visual poem – making sentences out of “places I’ve been to online” to explain why “real life” isn’t always accessible for them.
You can watch the film ‘About Us, Without Us’ on YouTube here: