Presented as part of our Art/Work Association programme, this event offers a space for critical discussion and collective reflection on the legacy and future of social housing in the UK.
Artist & Producer Vanessa Farinha will be joined by Antje Saunders (Design Director, SNG) along with a resident of a council estate to explore both personal and professional perspectives on these often-stigmatised architectural environments, and to consider how co-design approaches might contribute to more sustainable and inclusive housing futures.
At a time when many post-war estates are facing demolition only decades after their construction, the conversation will reflect on how the original ambitions of social housing could have been strengthened through the active participation of those they were intended to serve.
As community-led and co-designed housing becomes more common, this discussion aims to imagine new, inclusive standards for designing homes and shaping communities.
This event is free to attend and will be held at Auto Italia. To register, follow the link in our bio.
--
Vanessa Farinha is a multi-disciplinary Artist & Producer. Her work explores the experience of the built environment and the hybrid identity as a tool for understanding.
She recently completed a development program with the De La Warr Pavilion and Flatland Projects and has shown work with MOCA London, Hastings Contemporary, LADA, and Via Farini amongst others. She is a member of Common Clay and Babes in Arms artist/mother collective.
She has supported many artists and creatives as a producer such as Amie Seigel, Zineb Sedira, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Nick Cave and Nick Ballon, and institutions Home Live Art, Channel 4, South London Gallery & Art on the Underground.
--
Antje Saunders is Design Director at SNG, and brings extensive experience from her previous role as Director and Architect at Allies and Morrison, London. Antje has played an important role in large mixed-use and housing-led masterplans including the Olympic Legacy. She co-founded the practice's Masterplanning Group and provided client support for the King’s Cross Masterplan.
Antje worked on the regeneration of Fosters Estate in Hendon, a co-design masterplan that explores ways of providing much-needed additional affordable homes within an existing estate, creating design proposals in close collaboration with, rather than for, the local community. Her estate regeneration experience ranges in scale, from the 16.5-hectare Gascoigne Estate in Barking to small-scale infill projects such as Fairbanks Road in Tottenham Hale.
More recently, Antje led the regeneration of Uplands Business Park in Waltham Forest, a masterplan co-locating innovative industrial typologies with up to 1,800 homes. Building on this experience designing along Agent of Change principles, she also led the masterplan for Knights Road in West Silvertown which provides 1,400 new homes as well as workspaces and a stacked industrial building.
--
Auto Italia is a non-profit contemporary visual arts institution dedicated to researching, producing and exhibiting work on the intersections of queer studies, activism and social change. This event sits within Auto Italia’s Art/Work Association (A/WA) programme, an alternative arts education programme of monthly talks and workshops, all conceived and led by early-career artists to engage a diverse range of audiences.
