I collaborated with urban anthropologist Joseph Cook (UCL) to produce an exhibition proposing an alternative heritage for South Norwood, as part of the Inventing South Norwood programme funded by Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zones, managed and hosted by Stanley Arts and supported by Croydon Council.

Our exhibition encouraged visitors to ask how different South Norwood might look today if the former Croydon Canal had continued to flow through the heart of the area.

Opening in the Social Café at Stanley Arts on Tuesday 3 May, visitors were encouraged to find out about how the waterway shaped the foundations of the area when first built, and to consider how South Norwood’s development might have differed had it never closed.

Entitled ‘When spring smiles again on this high favoured town’ – the closing line of a song written for the opening of the canal in 1809 – the exhibition tells the story of how waterways across the UK are currently sitting at the centre of redevelopment strategies after decades of neglect. Their biodiversity, heritage and real estate opportunities have – sometimes controversially – been recognised as ‘placemaking’ devices by local authorities and private developers alike.

At a time when new developments are rising across South Norwood, and as Croydon Council focuses on a heritage-led redevelopment strategy for the town centre, the exhibition drew parallels with other London suburbs. What might have been lost in the case of South Norwood when the canal was sold to build the railways in the early nineteenth century?

Visitors were prompted to paint a picture of what might have been lost, or potentially gained by the momentous occasion of the canal infilling, and explore the ways local residents might want to bring that back to life. Would a waterway improve wellbeing or might the local area have benefitted from its closure?

There was an opportunity to leave remarks at the exhibition throughout May, and through an online portal.

I led a masterclass to accompany the exhibition on 5 May 2022.

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