From Heroin to Heroines

From Heroin to Heroines traced the journey of the residents of the, then soon-to-be, demolished Haggerston Estate once labelled the ‘heroin capital of Europe’. To challenge these crass stereotypes that demonise social housing residents across the country and to reimagine the future of public housing, residents spent their final summer in the estate reviving the virtuous heroines of 18th Century novelist Samuel Richardson after which the estate’s blocks were named. 

The exhibition interrogates ideas of public and private, home and history, architecture and regeneration, how we’re seen and how we see. Visitors were reminded to respect that people were living beside and behind the images at the time of the exhibition.