Residents of a new social housing scheme in Notting Hill have been receiving house-warming gifts by Turner Prize nominee Nathan Coley. The Glasgow-based artist has produced 112 small scale sculptures – one for each of the site’s apartments.
The sculptures are modelled on his larger sculptural installation which sits on the rooftop of the building and is based on a Bramley apple tree.
The aim is to connect the new housing complex and its residents with its local history. Previously 35 houses stood on the site, which in the late 1970s became a radicalised community of squatters and declared itself the ‘Free Independent State of Frestonia’. As part of their campaign to avoid eviction, the residents all took on the surname ‘Bramley’.
The group worked together as a community, printing their own stamps and creating their own passports. They even applied to the UN for independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. Over time the community disipated due to crime, drugs and social problems.
This year a new set of apartments designed by Haworth Tompkins Architects was built on the site by the charitable London housing association The Peabody Trust. Now completed, its new residents have started to move in.
To coincide with the project, a new publication has been published. The book presents a variety of texts, images and documentation relating to the new housing development, the history of the Bramley apple and Frestonia – including a selection of archive photographs of the former independent state taken by former resident Tony Sleep.
Nathan Coley – to the Bramley Family of Frestonia is out now via Anomie Publishing
