Bridge art backed by Basement Jaxx

Tuesday, 19 April 2011

By Nadia Gilani

HOUSE music duo Basement Jaxx 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 group has now got a £10,000 council grant to revamp the seventh bridge in Cambria Road to kick off the project.

Walter Graham Reed, an architect and film-maker 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 Jazz, who record at the Bizspace business centre in Shakespeare Road, are producing a track inspired by the area to be launched at the festival.

Mr Reed, 47, said: “Basement Jaxx agreed to produce a song that will hopefully be ready by the time of the festival.

“I just walked into their studio and asked them.

“The idea is to complete the Cambria bridge work and centre the rest of the bridges around that one.

“We want to make the bridges a sequence of events as you travel through the junction by repainting them using colours that work as a group.

“We want artists to use them in some way that will define Loughborough Junction as a place, and give it a sense of community and identity.”

The group is working with 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 are encouraging 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.

Email: nadia.gilani@slp.co.uk

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