Packington Works - Claudia Janke

Packington Works is a book exploring the beauty and complexities of making art with your neighbours.

Artist Claudia Janke has been collaborating with her neighbours on the Packington - a housing estate in central London - for twenty years. The book gathers together Claudia’s extraordinary work made between 2003 and 2023 for the first time giving an intimate glimpse into a changing community. It serves as a joyful reminder for those who took part and a useful primer to encourage those considering working in their own communities.

The Packington Estate, known as the Pack, was an infamous concrete-panel housing estate built in place of brick terraces. The first residents moved in at the beginning of 1970. Its five hundred and forty homes were demolished between 2007 and 2017, the concrete crushed and levelled to make ground for new flats and houses. There is no visible trace of the old estate left. Claudia moved to the Packington in 1999 and started making art with her neighbours in 2003.

On the old estate Claudia photographed her neighbours in their flats and on the walkways, recording close-up the intricacies of the social and built environments. In 2014 she pasted huge prints of portraits in the sites of their making as an immersive public exhibition – for residents as they said goodbye and for others to experience the infamous buildings often for the first, and last, time. During the rebuild when neighbours lived on a building site for twelve years, and settled in their new homes with new neighbours, Claudia’s work connected people together through films, performances, and events. Still and moving image collaborative portraits - including waving and whispering were achieved with a drone, string phones, giant messages, hundreds of hours of door knocking, and most importantly cake.

AiR, 2023
Softcover,  136pp, 240 x 150mm

Signed by Claudia