{"id":8511,"date":"2026-09-25T11:50:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T18:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=8511"},"modified":"2026-09-25T11:50:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T18:50:42","slug":"on-concrete-remnants-of-londons-aylesbury-estate-harriet-mena-hill-preserves-a-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=8511","title":{"rendered":"On Concrete Remnants of London\u2019s Aylesbury Estate, Harriet Mena Hill Preserves a Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"On<\/p>\n

Built throughout the 1960s and \u201970s, the Aylesbury Estate<\/a> is an enormous public housing complex in South East London that at its peak, boasted 11,000 residents. Like other social projects of this kind, Aylesbury has struggled with violence and vandalism throughout its run, and in 2005, local officials decided to demolish the estate and rebuild in phases rather than rehabilitate the existing structures.<\/p>\n

Living and working in South East London for nearly four decades, Harriet Mena Hill<\/a> was familiar with the area, but it wasn\u2019t until 2018 when she was commissioned to teach a summer program for young residents that she really engaged with the project. She made large portraits from wool, blending dyed roving to delineate windows, shape bowed electrical wires, and even mimic graffiti spray-painted on outdoor walls. <\/p>\n

\"a
\u201cSoft Concrete Missenden, Aylesbury Estate\u201d (2020), wool on felt, 88 x 118 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Forming the series Soft Concrete<\/em>, the textile pieces cast a largely gray environment of stone and steel in soft fiber. The body of work, Hill says, was a \u201crepositioning of how the estate is perceived. Historically, it has been widely portrayed in the media as violent and intimidating, as a place without hope.\u201d <\/p>\n

In contrast, Soft Concrete<\/em> \u201cpresents the estate as a place of living and community. From a distance, the portraits look like photographs or realistic paintings, but on closer inspection, the material reveals itself to be wool, hand blended for subtle colour mixing used to depict small active details of domestic life,\u201d the artist adds.<\/p>\n

Hill is broadly interested in the ways that communities and the objects they interact with can become vessels for shared memories, so when the estate began to be razed in 2020, she started to collect fragments of concrete from the construction site. \u201cIt was a direct response to the situation of residents who were required to stay at home as the demolition of adjoining blocks, the homes of their former neighbours, continued throughout lockdown, in spite of wider restrictions,\u201d she tells Colossal.<\/p>\n

Before its destruction, several tenants had advocated for renovations rather than demolition, hoping to preserve the community and homes they\u2019d built. In an interview<\/a> with the BBC<\/em> in 2023, long-time resident Aysen Dennis lamented being forced to leave the estate after 30 years. Local administrators found her new housing in central London, but it wasn\u2019t the same. \u201cThe council gave me everything I asked for. It\u2019s on a high floor. There\u2019s lots of light. I can see the park,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"a
Studio view. Photo by Jon Cardwell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Intimate in scale, Hill\u2019s paintings glimpse hallways and pockets of windows that are similarly sliced from their larger contexts, the ragged edges of concrete framing the largely domestic spaces. Part of the ongoing series titled The Aylesbury Fragments,<\/em> the scenes capture the run-down infrastructure of buildings left standing during the phased reconstruction process. <\/p>\n

Although regeneration began in 2013, it\u2019s less than half complete, and Hill has completed more than 150 paintings to date. As demolition continues, she adds to her ever-changing collection of concrete remnants. \u201cI live with the unpainted pieces for months, sometimes years, getting to know their shape before I begin working on them,\u201d the artist says, noting that as long as there are buildings still under construction, she\u2019ll continue painting these small tributes to the community once housed within their walls.<\/p>\n

Hill has exhibitions slated for London and across the U.K. throughout 2027. Follow along on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a
\u201cWater Out Of Sunlight.\u201d Photo by Kevin Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cStacked Sill.\u201d Photo by Kevin Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cWaiting.\u201d Photo by Kevin Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cSoft Concrete on the Aylesbury.\u201d Photo by Alison Romanczuk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cCable Drift.\u201d Photo by Kevin Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Studio view. Photo by Jon Cardwell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cSudden In A Shaft of Sunlight.\u201d Photo by Kevin Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cSoft Concrete Missenden, Aylesbury Estate\u201d (2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article On Concrete Remnants of London\u2019s Aylesbury Estate, Harriet Mena Hill Preserves a Community<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Built throughout the 1960s and \u201970s, the Aylesbury Estate is an enormous public housing complex in South East London that at its peak, boasted 11,000 residents. Like other social projects…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}