Changing Expectations was a site-specific installation of mappings, recollections, photographs and ephemera relating to the history of the Carlyle Girls School and the Sloane Boys School, commissioned for the exhibition The Waiting Room: Responses to Locations in Transition. The exhibition, curated by Fitzrovia Noir, was in the Hortensia Gallery on Hortensia Road in South West London. The building housing the gallery was purpose built for the Carlyle Girls School and later became the site of the Sloane Boys School.

Initial research was carried out to gain an understanding of how the road itself had changed and developed over time.  This led to a mapping of the road’s history, that communicated the range of organisations and private residencies that have occupied the street over its lifetime from 1905 to the present. 

This initial research revealed that the two shools had previously occupied the building in which the exhibition was taking place.  These schools stood out as being places that had personal resonance for a number of individuals, while at the same time being institutions whose stories are reflective of changes in the broader social environment.  One mapping was created for each of the schools. These map some of the people whose lives intersected with the schools, along with significant events in the schools’ histories. 

Acknowledgements:

Memories of the schools were contributed by former students for inclusion in the exhibition. Photographs and ephemera were contributed by former students and by the Kensington and Chelsea Local Studies Library.

The commission was funded by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea arts service and was organised by the Fitzrovia Noir artists collective.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger images of the installation.