Arts Thread

Arts and culture can play a key role in gentrification—acting as a catalysts of displacement. Can these mechanisms help subvert the this process? Focusing on Elephant and Castle in London, the project centres on its populations, particularly the Latin American community, and their ongoing displacement. It aims to reconstruct their social and cultural dynamics through public art and urban interventions as forms of social practice. The main proposal is the creation of a "Cultural Mile" linking Elephant and Castle with the Tate Modern—an institution tied to the area’s so-called regeneration. This route features dispersed artworks that revive everyday cultural life once centred around the now-demolished shopping centre. Developed through urban analysis and participatory research, these interventions spatialise memory and cultural continuity. A public call invites local artists to critically engage with these contested histories. The project starts from the premise that gentrification follows a colonial logic—a continuation of dispossession through spatial and cultural erasure. In response, it adopts magical realism as both method and narrative form. Rooted from a Latin American approach, magical realism functions as a postcolonial response: a mode of resistance and resilience expressed through counter-narratives grounded in memory, cultural specificity, and adaptability. Using qualitative and participatory methods—including storytelling workshops shaped by elements of magical realism—the project enables the community to reclaim and reframe their narratives through the lens of Latino urbanism, allowing displaced communities to reroot identity and socio-cultural practices within inclusive city-making processes.