This map uses our pilot ‘Create The Earth Museum’ platform and is best viewed on a desktop or laptop with a cup of tea or a glass of wine! On a mobile, it is best viewed with Firefox, MS Edge and Chrome browsers in locations with good WiFi/ phone signal strength. We’re still working on Safari!
One of my overwhelming feelings in the recent lockdown, was that of nostalgia. By nature, I tend to think about the past, but the never ending sense of time took me back to my school holidays in the 1970s. I started to get inspired about the mundane suburban south London life of my youth; the high street gossip of my mother, the shopkeepers and the playground rumours. Some, possibly still exist in fading, collective memories, but as I started to paint I realised that most of the things I remembered had never been recorded.
Gram Hilleard, July 2022
Although my childhood was taking place in the 1970’s, it seemed I was living in a place from another time populated by ‘busybody’ old ladies in fur coats. It was all quite safe and boring, but this came at the expense of inspiration. There were no galleries, no museums, and being cut-off from the tube network; everything was 9 miles away up in town.
Bowie had famously hidden away in Beckenham, but if you wanted to do anything you had to do as the ‘Bromley Contingent’ and just get out!
So, the irony is: here I am many years later, inspired to paint the everyday life of Escaping in Suburbia.
Gram Hilleard is an artist and photographer of the urban realm who communicates visually. The Earth Museum is delighted to be partnering with Gram on an experiment to map his unique insights into the fine grain of place, piloting our Create The Earth Museum platform. His work reminds us vividly and emotionally of the powerful interweaving between memories, anecdotes and spaces in our lives that bring real meaning to concepts of place and community.
We recommend you take a quick look at the Exhibition Map on your mobile device, and then sit down somewhere comfy later with a laptop or desktop PC and a cuppa/ glass of something good for a proper browse.
This map uses our pilot ‘Create The Earth Museum’ platform and is best viewed on a desktop or laptop with a cup of tea or a glass of wine! On a mobile, it is best viewed with Firefox, MS Edge and Chrome browsers in locations with good WiFi/ phone signal strength. We’re still working on Safari!
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