Daniela Perez

The Latin Village/ El Pueblo Latino is a collaboration with the traders and community members of The Seven Sisters Indoor Market. Home to over 40 businesses representing more than 15 nationalities, the market is so much more than a building. It is the largest concentration of Latin traders in Britain, as well as a home for traders of African, Iranian, and Caribbean descent. It is representative of Latin identity in London, a space where many have discovered or reconnected to their Latin roots. 

After over 15 years of campaigning, community activists won the battle against a developer who sought to demolish the market to build luxury flats. Now, however, the market has remained closed for two years while undergoing repairs. Community organisers are currently fundraising for a plan that would place control back into the hands of the local community.

Through writing, archival material, and photography, this publication aims to portray community spaces through the eyes of the people that occupy them and involve the community in its own documentation. Disposable cameras were distributed to a group of traders from the Latin Village who are now dispersed throughout the high street. These traders generously offered their time and creativity to capture their every day lives. The book is a reflection of the present state of the market, its past, and the hope for the future. We hope the publication will continue to evolve along with the market, and that the market will once again be a hub for the community. 

Ventanitas (Spanish for little windows) is a spotlight on an often overlooked aspect of Miami: its walk up coffee windows. Through interviews and photographs, my bilingual book covers the history of the windows in Miami as well as their place in the city’s culture today. The Ventanitas provide quick service and great coffee, but that is not what keeps people coming back. After documenting the Ventanitas for over a year, it is clear that they are the antithesis of the Starbucks experience. In a coffee culture obsessed with optimisation, the Ventanitas offer a warm, familial system that facilitates connection. 

Caregivers of the River is a project produced in the Lore & Ware Situated Practice in collaboration with the House of Illustration. The House of Illustration is currently developing a centre at the historic New River Head and partnered with our group to create work that uses life records to connect with living voices and memories related to the New River. 

The New River has a rich history of over 400 years, so I began researching communities that gather around the New River. One group, the Soul Swimmers, was founded by Debbie Croydon and Audrey Livingston. This group of black and asian women gather to swim in the West Reservoir, which is fed by the New River. The other group is a small team of 10 Thames River workers that walk the entire length of the New River (23 miles) twice a week. These two communities, a voluntary community formed by women who swim in the reservoir, and a somewhat involuntary community of Thames workers who share a duty and passion for the river, never meet, but they are connected through water and a common theme of caregiving. 

To illustrate the circularity of this theme, I created a double sided concertina book that tells a visual essay of two communities joined by the river, one side that uses it and one side that maintains it. The form of the book has no true beginning or end, which reflects the form of the river as well. 

Special thanks and credit: WaterAid/ Nikki McClarron

What’s Your Journey? is a project produced in collaboration with the King’s College Hospital — School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences. Our group worked with PhD candidates looking to communicate and connect with the public. In response, our team created a tool kit designed to run workshops with students ages 13–15 with the aim of showing that becoming a PhD candidate is an attainable goal. The tool kit includes a guide for running the workshop, worksheets, pictographic Lino stamps, and mark-making materials. Using the tool kit, scientists can illustrate their own journeys and share with the students, who will do the same. By making their journey into the field of research transparent, the scientists can form a dialogue with the students, who can begin to see themselves as future researchers. To read more about the project, please visit our website. 

Special thanks to: Hannah Green

‘A little, a lot, of next day confusion;

The tumult, the art, the stimulation

Of a wet gleaming Wardour street,

Friday evening, the senses’ bursting feat’

A publication created in collaboration with designer Niamh Thompson and poet Shwan Ziad. This small book of poems looks to sensitively explore Shwan Ziad’s understanding of his own Middle Eastern culture through a playful testing, extrapolation and abandonment of the format of the traditional English Sonnet. Imagery of water meeting electricity is pitted against hints of political examination that explore a meshing of two cultures. A Middle Eastern typeface is subjected to a wealth of classical ligatures, and exposed film is passed through the rivers where the poems were written.