Community Life
A hand-painted giant giraffe for Croydon Stands Tall, the art trail marking Croydon's year as London Borough of Culture 2023.
OVERVIEW
Community Life is a giant giraffe sculpture painted for Croydon Stands Tall: a 10‑week art trail produced by Croydon Business Improvement District in collaboration with Wild in Art, with more than thirty giraffes placed across Croydon town centre, decorated by local artists and communities and raising funds for Crisis.
THE BRIEF
Each artist is given the same blank giraffe form and free rein. The challenge is to make a single sculpture that reads from across a busy town centre, survives ten weeks outdoors, and earns its place on a trail people follow on a map, while carrying the civic, celebratory spirit of a Borough of Culture year.
THE CONCEPT
The concept looks at what makes a community: people, the things they do, and the animals and natural elements that share their streets. Figures, plants and creatures are all drawn into one connected field, sharing lines across the giraffe’s surface as a metaphor for how everything in a place is related and interdependent.
THE OUTCOME
Community Life spent ten weeks in Croydon town centre as part of the trail, seen by thousands and contributing to the funds raised for Crisis, before being auctioned at the end of the trail to help raise money for the charity. A public piece that doubled as a celebration of the place it stood in, for the year that place was being celebrated.
