His journey through Elephant & Castle, the culmination of years of work, was put together as a film screening of Nomad's Vision Quest - A Ritual For Elephant & Castle. The film is an unusual document of the bizarre and intriguing consultation process, with its resulting rites as devised by Coates. One of his pieces involved a sold-out performance at the historic Coronet Cinema in the Elephant, with 16 piece disco-prog outfit Chrome Hoof. No practising artist and well known band have been better matched, I propose.
Vision Quest was later (recently) screened inside an empty shop unit in the iconicly hideous shopping centre at Elephant, the first purpose built shopping centre in the UK, long marked for demolition. Like the rest of the area, Elephant is faced with imminent gentrification and the loss of the micro working class communities that make any London area unique. Having worked in the regeneration of the area myself, I seized the opportunity to talk to Coates whose easily memorable work I'd first spotted at Zoo Art Fair 2007. He did not disappoint. As a story teller, Coates has much to say and is well worth a listen. From trips down the Amazon river to conversing with imaginary birds on his way to the shops - Coates lives an interesting reality.
8-9pm www.resonancefm.com or 104.4FM if you have an ordinary transistor radio with an antennae and you live in London.
