Mosaic mural at Tangmere House, West Green, Haringey

Summary

Mosaic mural by Gülsün Erbil, 1986-1987, titled Equality-Harmony.

Description

Mosaic mural by Gülsün Erbil, 1986-1987.

MATERIALS: glass tesserae.

DESCRIPTION AND SYMBOLISM: the mural covers an estimated area of 100m²; it is approximately 5m wide, including side returns, and over six storeys high. It covers the concrete refuse chute which served Tangmere House.

The mural is named Equality–Harmony and its overarching theme is one of ‘reconciliation between the races’. The unifying device of the composition is a musical stave which runs from a treble clef at the top, merging into a piano keyboard at the bottom of the work. The musical notes on the stave represent the first line of the carol ‘Joy to the World’ and this has sometimes been taken as an alternative title. A spiral, a key motif of mysticism in Erbil’s work, is incorporated into the treble clef. A rainbow (in Turkey a symbol of change, but in other cultures a symbol of peace, unity, fortune or LGBTQ+ pride) is interwoven with the stave, terminating in a white prism on the right-hand return.

Towards the top of the composition are a series of images which place the artwork in its geographical location. Twin hemispheres depict the western and eastern worlds (and with Turkey picked out in red). Underneath, Great Britain is outlined in green on a swirling blue background. London is next to be depicted, bisected by the distinctive blue line of the Thames and with the location of Broadwater Farm indicated by a circle. Beneath that are the buildings of the estate, including Tangmere House (with the mural shown in miniature), the distinctive curved boiler house and the red triangular structure and swings of the children’s play centre. Views of the estate continue on the right-hand side.

The lower half of the panel depicts the residents’ recreations and amenities, including (from top to bottom) snooker (a popular pastime at the Youth Centre), chess, books at the library, a personal computer, the estate’s Shell Theatre, breakdancers and spectators, kettle drums and a track runner, symbolising the nearby New River Sports Centre. Other imagery includes a black figure holding up a dove of peace, the moon piercing the sun and further mystical spirals. At the base of the mural is a black and a white hand playing the black and white keys of a piano, representing racial equality and harmony. Erbil notes that the hands are a symbol of the working class. The chute outlet at the bottom is in the position of the piano player’s head.

The lower part of the mural is enclosed in a later, roofed, corridor (not part of the listed building). A narrow strip of the mural is now hidden by the depth of the roof as it meets the face of the building.

History

Equality–Harmony was created in 1986-1987 in the aftermath of the Broadwater Farm riot of 6 October 1985.
Broadwater Farm estate was the flagship housing project of the new London Borough of Haringey, created under London’s local government reorganisation of 1965. The estate was designed by the Borough Architect’s Department (principal architect S M El Doori) and built from 1967-73. A recurring criticism of the estate was the lack of community facilities and services, this was particularly acute for young Black people. Residents sought to address the issue with the formation of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association (BFYA) in 1981 to campaign for greater facilities. In the following years the Association successfully campaigned for a community centre, a day nursery and women’s centre and a children’s play centre on the estate.

On 6 October 1985 Broadwater Farm made national headlines as the scene of a riot. Existing tensions between the Black community and the police were ignited by the death of Cynthia Jarrett the previous day during a police search at her home. In the ensuing disturbance on the estate PC Keith Blakelock was killed. Over the following months tensions remained high as police maintained a substantial presence at the estate and a series of contested criminal trials proceeded at the Old Bailey. An independent inquiry chaired by Lord Gifford QC convened in February 1986, publishing its findings that July. A follow-up report was published in 1989. Lord Gifford identified racism as ‘a running theme throughout’, that ‘discriminatory attitudes and policies have affected policing, education, employment prospects, housing allocation and media reporting.’ (Gifford, Second Report, 1989, p 123).

The riot was one of several episodes of civil unrest occurring in the early 1980s against the background of economic inequality and institutional racism faced disproportionately by the Black and multi-ethnic communities. The event is a mile-stone in the history of race relations in the UK.

In response to the events of October 1986, Haringey Council began a coordinated programme of investments in the estate to address what had been identified as underlying factors behind the riot. Some took the form of community initiatives in which local residents’ groups were involved. Haringey’s housing department in cooperation with the BFYA coordinated a package of improvements which included commissioning two external community murals and two landscaped gardens.

The artworks were Equality-Harmony, the mosaic mural at Tangmere House, 1986-1987, by Gülsün Erbil; and the Peace Mural, a painted mural on the end wall of the Roachford block, 1987, by Anthony Steele.

Gülsün Erbil was a resident on the Broadwater Farm estate and a witness to the events of October 1985. Erbil recalls being given the latitude to suggest her own location and subject, and after providing a sample mosaic panel, she was provided with a vacant unit on the Tangmere House shopping precinct in which to set up a workshop. Erbil chose the concrete shaft for the waste chute on the north elevation of Tangmere House as the location for the mural. The chute ran from the first-floor deck level to above the sixth, top, floor of Tangmere House. She was assisted by Mahmut Bozkurt, a graduate from the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, and for a shorter period by Aydin Ayan, another Turkish artist. Estate residents, especially schoolchildren and young people, were encouraged to participate in the creation of the mural panels and were taught aspects of the mosaic technique. Two other residents assisted with mounting, cementing and grouting the mosaic panels.

Erbil used a Byzantine mosaic technique to create the mural, involving irregularly shaped and hand-cut glass tesserae. She employed what is sometimes described as the ‘reverse method’: outlines of the design were drawn in reverse on sheets of backing paper approximately 1.2m × 1m in size. The tesserae were then mounted face-down onto the backing with paste. The resulting mural panels were then bonded onto the wall with cement. After approximately 48 hours the backing papers were removed and the mosaic was grouted. The mosaic covers an estimated total area of 100m².

The mural's overarching theme, as Erbil describes it, is one of ‘reconciliation between the races’. It was created as part of a process of social reconciliation in the wake of the riot, designed and made by the community that witnessed it. Through its depictions of cultural and community life on the estate, the mural celebrates the grass-roots activism which helped shape it and counters a narrative of disaffection associated with the estate. The work was featured on the front cover of the second Gifford report of 1989, although the report failed to credit Erbil as the project artist.

Further investments in the estate were undertaken in the early 1990s and a third mural, by Bernette Hall and Donald Taylor, was completed in 1991. A capital works programme executed between 1993 and 2002 resulted in the removal of some of the estate's raised walkways and the insertion of secure entrances at ground floor level. It was during this programme that the wide pedestrian walkways which connected Tangmere House and the area around the base of Erbil’s mosaic mural with other parts of the estate were removed. A ground-floor entrance was inserted beneath the base of the mural and its lower part was enclosed within a first-floor glazed corridor.

Gülsün Erbil (1948-) is a Turkish artist known for her abstract works that take inspiration from the Sufi mystic Mevlânâ. She has worked in a variety of media including oil paint, textiles, ceramics, mosaics and stained glass. Born in Izmir, Erbil studied painting at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (now the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) in 1966-71. She completed a master’s degree in ceramics at Goldsmith’s College in 1983-4, studying under Ken Bright and David Garbett, returning to Goldsmith’s in 1993-4 for a master's in textiles. In 1998 she founded Gallery X in Harlem, New York and returned to Istanbul in 2002, founding a gallery of the same name in the city’s Beyoglu district.

Prior to the Tangmere house project, Erbil completed several mosaic murals in Turkey, many of them in the same Byzantine mosaic technique. Her only other mosaic work in the UK dates to 1988-1989, a mural of about 4m² at the entrance to the Saudi American Bank, 65 Curzon Street, Mayfair, London (probably lost).

Reasons for Listing

The mosaic mural at Tangmere House, 1986-1987, by Gülsün Erbil, titled Equality-Harmony, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest

* as a striking and technically accomplished work of public art; richly coloured and detailed, it combines figurative, abstract and symbolic motifs in a lively composition;

* for its celebration of universal values of peace, equality and harmony, alongside depictions of the diverse cultural life of the Broadwater Farm estate, and aspects of youth culture more broadly in 1980s Britain;

* as a work of community art, exemplary in its degree of survival, scale and artistic quality; commissioned, designed and executed within the Broadwater Farm community.

Historic interest:

* commissioned in the wake of the Broadwater Farm riot, an event of national significance in the history of race relations in the UK, the mural stands as a tangible marker of community resilience in the face of violence and disadvantage.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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