On Playgrounds and the Archive: Joan Littlewood's Stratford Fair, 1967-1975

Joan Littlewood's Stratford Fair, a late manifestation of her Fun Palace idea, aimed - through community-led and temporary playgrounds - to reclaim public land compromised by local government slum clearance in East London. Scholarship to date has discussed the Fair as a trigger for the politica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArchitecture and culture Vol. 6; no. 3; pp. 387 - 398
Main Author Bonet Miro, Ana
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.09.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
20th century
archive
Archives & records
Cedric Price
Constitution
Diaries
Fun Palace
Historiography
Joan Littlewood
Littlewood, John Edenson (1885-1977)
Local government
Media
Memory
playground
Playgrounds
Public lands
Stratford Fair
Youth
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Summary:Joan Littlewood's Stratford Fair, a late manifestation of her Fun Palace idea, aimed - through community-led and temporary playgrounds - to reclaim public land compromised by local government slum clearance in East London. Scholarship to date has discussed the Fair as a trigger for the political imagination of local youth, but not the central role that media played in the constitution of its public agenda. This article explores the archive as an active site of representation of the Fair. Recorded and circulated through monthly diaries, the Fair's events generated affects that fostered attachment and identity, while its distributed media archive maintains a latent regenerative potential and invites plural historiography.
ISSN:2050-7828
2050-7836
DOI:10.1080/20507828.2018.1525114