As part of the regeneration of Thornton Heath High Street, the Snapshot Collective, made up of local people, have developed the "This is Thornton Heath" project, which hopes to present a “snapshot” of Thornton Heath capturing a unique sense of place and Community – celebrating the past and present, for current residents and generations to come. The project is involving a cross section of local people. In honour of the area’s postcode, CR7, they would like to take seven themes as stimulus and develop photography based designs through photographic responses from the Snapshot team, members of Lenses of Croydon (LofC) and the wider community: 1. History 2. Community 3. Business 4. Nature 5. Culture 6. Diversity 7. Youth
The TITH project aims to reach as much of the local community as possible. Its strategy is to create a campaign around the project and cultivate a strong online presence.
The tagline is BE PART OF THE ART and they hope that, by contributing and connecting to the project, the community will find enduring value in the final artwork. It also hopes to utilise existing local photography, art, media, community and culture groups. In their experience they have found there is a great culture of word of mouth and sharing information between these groups. They hope to exploit this by introducing the TITH project to some of these groups and be part of the ongoing regeneration of the High Street.
Kelly says – The project has been led by local people and created an opportunity for all to depict how they see their area. We have had well over 100 photos contributed to the "This is Thornton Heath" tumbler site https://www.flickr.com/groups/thornton-heath/, had over 30 people take part in a photo walkabout in the area and 10 take part in a creative writing project. What we have found is that people want to take part in creating their community and that when contributing they are not isolated. We have made a wide number of connections that have led to other activities that benefit the community as a whole and mean we are able to share information with others who about what is happening in the area. For example I was able to tell my Aunt and her friend about the sewing club at Age UK and the community gardening projects. On my recommendation they will try it out.
