Basement Jaxx Back Bridge Art Project in Brixton

20th April, 2011 - Posted by admin - Comments Off

The Basement Jaxx, a house music duo based in Brixton London,  are backing a community group’s plan to renovate a neighbourhood’s seven bridges.

The 7 Bridges Project has been set up by the Loughborough Junction Action Group to give the area a stronger identity. Six of the bridges are visible from the town centre in Coldharbour Lane at its junction with Loughborough Road.

The project group has already secured a £10,000 council grant to revamp the seventh bridge in Cambria Road to kick off the bridge art project.

Architect and film-maker Walter Graham Reed, from Loughborough Junction, came up with the idea. He is working on the project with fellow residents Lois Acton and Anthea Masey. An outdoor festival to officially launch the first bridge decoration will be held on June 4 and 5.

Basement Jaxx, who record their chart topping music at their Bizspace business centre studio space in Brixton, Shakespeare Road, are producing a track inspired by the area to be launched at the festival.

Mr Reed, who is 47, said: “Basement Jaxx have agreed to produce a song that will hopefully be ready by the time of the June festival. “I simply walked into their studio and asked them. “The idea is to complete the Cambria bridge work, and then centre the rest of the bridges around that one. “We want to make the bridges appear as a sequence of events as you travel through the junction, we intend to achieve this by painting them using colours that work together as a group.

“We would really like artists to use them in some way that will define Loughborough Junction as a place, and give it a sense of real community and unique identity.” The group is working with a number of schools; Evelyn Grace Academy in Shakespeare Road, Herne Hill; Jessop Primary School in Lowden Road, Herne Hill; and Hillmead Primary School in Moorland Road, Brixton. They have decided to encourage pupils to come up with fossil-themed ideas to decorate the first bridge. The design is inspired by the Cambrian explosion – a period that started 543 million years ago when complex life rapidly developed on earth.

Visit www.7-bridges.org for more details about the project.

More info about Bizspace’s Brixton studio space can be found here.

The Basement Jaxx official website is www.basementjaxx.net

Tweet