As a task to better understand the blurred lines that surround identity, and the sense of belonging to one or another country, we where tasked to find 10 situations where we can observe strong markers of culture.
10 images showing examples of 'National identity'
I immediately associated this task with the way that we are surrounded by clusters of culture, communities living within communities, isolating specific markers of their backgrounds and culture, yet inevitably assimilating the dominant home culture of the country they reside in. Elephant and Castle is a dying example of what that looks like without the intervention of capital investment and it looks messy, crazy and unique.
Colombian corset shops, African traditional fabric& Jeweller traid retailer, Asador restaurants,Latino social activism Design, British minimalism Design shops, Custard tarts and a cheeky Wassail, or blessing of the Orchard.
- British Design as a term was coined as a result of a collective effort made by brits to lift the country up from the barely finished war, and a direct influence from the exhibition Britain Can Make It , where minimalist and stylish values akin to the early Arts and Crafts movement resurfaced in the form of proudly British style. This was a move away from the utilitarianism and impoverished spartan look that decades of austerity and war and post war rationing of resources. Aesthetically, it bears resemblance with current neo-nordic minimalist interior design, but at the time the official thinking was embodied in the tweedy twinkling figure of COID Director Gordon Russell, himself a Cotswold craftsman.
Shop at the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre
https://www.britaincanmakeit.com/
- Wassail: The word wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon greeting Wæs þu hæl, meaning “be thou hale”—i.e., “be in good health”. The correct response to the greeting is Drinc hæl. According to the Oxford English Dictionary waes hael is the Middle English (and hence post-Norman) spelling parallel to OE hál wes þú, and was a greeting not a toast. The orchard-visiting wassail refers to the ancient custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England, reciting incantations and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year.
- Asador Restaurant
- Latino/Venezuelan Social activism Design
Using the all time popular dish of the ‘Arepa’, they have made a very clever denounce poster against the gentrification of Elephant and castle, which would see many of these Southamerican “flavours” and traditions evicted from their place of practice and residence exiled from their hub, which has been occupied by a multiethnic community since its inauguration . #protectyourbarrio
- Colombian Corset Shop
Perpetuating a national perception of Beauty and carrying it out even abroad as migrants, expats and second and third generation Colombians.
- Afrikaan traditional fabric& Jewler traid retailer
Bibliography of resources:
http://www.elcolombiano.com/tendencias/por-que-nos-obsesiona-la-belleza-JJ3913568
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/best-british-design
Cloudiine 