Business is Driven by Quarterly Results: Making Our Mark – led by Lina Ivanova

Community cement casting workshop in which participants will have the opportunity to make their mark and cast their presence within Croydon using cement as a printing material and through this explore the planning, design and construction of public spaces.

This hands-on workshop aims to allow participants – the citizens of Croydon – the opportunity to reflect on how we individually use public spaces and question their value and purpose, becoming active in the design of space, making their own personal mark and taking the role of citizen place-makers. In the context of the struggle over urban space, together we will collaborate to unpick what space means (to us personally to our families and to us collectively as a community), how and for whom it functions.

Whilst in the preceding workshop Lina offers the cyanotype process to obliterate details of the surface of personal objects participants bring, in this workshops the process of casting personal objects in cement, brings to the surface characteristics of objects such as texture, shape, size and proportion and with this, what makes us, us.

Residents of Croydon are invited to cast impressions of personal objects which represent their identity, culture, journeys to Croydon and their connection to the place. Objects will be pressed in clay, removed and cement will be poured over the impressed clay to cast the impression left by the object. The resulting outcomes will be set and cured in 48 hours and curated in a final installation in a communal space in Croydon. Participants will be able to keep /collect their casts once the installation is taken down.

Protective equipment such as masks, gloves and aprons will be provided. People with respiratory health conditions are advised to attend at their own discretion due to the hazardous qualities of cement dust to skin and the respiratory system.

Participants are encouraged to bring recycling from home, such as plastic or cardboard packaging such as washed plastic bottles, yoghurt pots, meat trays, fruit punnets, juice cartons, shoe boxes, thinner and thicker cardboard packaging, which will support the production of the casts.

This workshop is part of Turf Projects’ latest commission series Desire Paths as part of London Borough of Culture 2023. Lina Ivanova’s project ‘Business is Driven by Quarterly Results’ aims to give participants the opportunity to locate their own stories in the public spaces of Croydon, and to consider their future in the area.

ABOUT LINA IVANOVA:

Lina Ivanova is a London based artist, originally from Bulgaria. Her practice is process-led, multidisciplinary, primarily including photography and sculpture. Lina constructs multi-media installations as a means of negotiating the notion of place. Often rooted in her experience of migration, Lina’s practice explores narratives of displacement, family, history and heritage. Found objects, public and private archives and industrial materials inform her exploration into the relationship between background, class and status. Having graduated with a BA in Photography (2015), she co-founded Revolv Collective (2017) and completed a Postgraduate Certificate of Education (2018).