Joe Moss, Bryan Dooley: WeWork Indoor/Outdoor

Model Village was a collaborative exhibition-making project developed over a residency Moss took part in at Eastcheap Projects, Letchworth Garden City (LGC) in 2022. Initially held at Take Courage Gallery in New Cross, London, it was commissioned on a larger scale as part of Sensing Place at NN Contemporary in Northampton.

The event addressed questions of ‘placemaking’ in new towns. During the program, participants were asked to make houses or public services out of any material and position them on a tabletop-gaming landscapes. There were no material rules. From assembled kebab napkins to pebbledash mini-houses, the collaborative world building facilitates exchange between people, and over time a logic, specific to each event, arose independently from any singular vision of what the ‘Model Village’ might be. The resulting sense of place, generated over the run of the program, captured the process of ‘culture’ arising naturally within the creation of a physical display.