Why make this map of Billingsgate Market?
I did a map to mark down the location[s] where I sketched for practical use. I want to ensure the record is comprehensive. Then, I [thought] about expanding the idea to make a barter map. The map references the sketch I did in the market, employing the idea from psychogeography. I especially want to highlight the people’s activity on the map, for example, inside the map Big Greg is walking with the trolley, Richard is eating his breakfast, Bobby’s family is standing inside their shop selling, etc. The map combines more than 70 sketches with my memories of over three years in the market.
What’s next for this project? And what inspiration are you taking from Barter Archive into your future work?
I want to take the initiative, share the experience and bring multi-discipline practitioners to join the project. I plan to create a residency project.
My experience from Hong Kong influenced the Barter Archive project, and my experience in illustration research, influenced my current project in Hong Kong, as I went back to Hong Kong [in 2022], and became the Assistant Professor at the [Academy of Visual Art, Hong Kong Baptist] University. My upcoming project will continue to be related to city-land use. It is a project that aims to explore the ways in which land developers and audiences are complicit in the marginalisation of a community’s memories. The exhibition will expand the idea of the Barter Auction by creating an ironic, humorous criticism of the unbalance land resource allocation and hegemony of the property development in Hong Kong.
Pat Wingshan Wong’s art series was part of the London Eats theme under the museum’s Curating London collection programme. This project aimed to understand and reflect upon Londoners’ relationship with food and drink. One of our collecting themes was ‘Places and Spaces’, and visitors told us that the places they were most interested in were food markets, and that’s how the Barter Archive for the Billingsgate Fish Market came about.
Header image: A view above the busy trading floor at Billingsgate Market. This is one of many photographs Bob Collins made there in 1958. (ID no.: IN27550.1)
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