The Demolition Project: A participatory installation

The Demolition Project (A-Z) will be on display at the Power and Architecture exhibition on Saturday 18 June and Sunday 19 June, 12–6pm, during which guests will be invited to reimagine and reshape London.

The Demolition Project (A-Z) is an installation that offers a way to explore how people feel about the city they live in, involving a giant map of London and an invitation to demolish whatever you want – to cut out buildings, streets or entire areas. In return, you supply your reasons for destroying something, whether you object to the way it looks, what it does or something else entirely.

Together, participants will develop a map full of holes and a word-map of memories, emotions and thoughts about the buildings we live in and with. Along the way, there is time and space to discuss why and how you would like to remake your city.

The Demolition Project is a collaboration between Russian artist Alisa Oleva and English writer Debbie Kent, inspired by a shared fascination with the demolitions and construction sites that make the city a place of constant transformation, and by the changes taking place in their respective home cities of Moscow and London, the power relationships they mirror and the traces they leave.

In Russia, the Demolition Project (A-Z) has been presented in Moscow (at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art) and Krasnodar (at MOZHET festival). In the UK, it has also been to Leicester and Manchester.