As featured a few weeks ago (00203), the annual and eclectic open-call Summer Exhibition is currently packing the grand galleries of London’s Royal Academy of Arts. It offers a rare opportunity for the general public to apply and get their work shown not only in the rich Mayfair art world, but in one of the most historic and celebrated art venues in art history.

There’s something a bit similar happening the other side of London, courtesy of artist Hetain Patel and cultural organisers Artangel with their project Come As You Really Are. There are however a few noticeable differences… We are no longer in Mayfair, but south of the Thames – and then a bit – in the post-war-expanded heart of Croydon, and instead of the Royal Academy’s grandness, we find ourselves in a Wetherspoons club that has lain empty since closing down early in 2022.




The window awnings still read THE MILAN BAR, but upon entering it is clear that this is unlike any other chain bar – in an otherwise entry lobby a small doorway reveals a well-lite presentation of plastic Polly Pocket toys, and turning into the main ground floor space reveals an eclectic explosion of colour, capitalism, and collectables. A display case sits in the centre of the room with a life-size ET sat on the top, inside is an assortment of children’s toys, Hollywood souvenirs, and bric a brac – somewhere between a Wunderkammer and second-hand store.

Exploring the spaces, the breadth and depth of the nations hobbies is discovered. Over 1500 people responded to Patel’s call-out for people to share their activities and collections, the artist interested not only in the aesthetic outcome of people’s pastimes but also the reasons and stories that led to such an occupation. A newspaper handout provides a full list of the hobbies included amongst the thousands on display, including traditional crafts including woodworking, painting, mosaics, knitting, millinery, crochet, and sewing.

But it’s broader. The list of 231 contributing practitioners also includes some less-common and more idiosyncratic activities: latch hook furnishings; creating tiny Cumbrian cottages from wood and slate; freestyle leathercraft; collecting football shirts; cosplay; yarnbombing; micro-origami; vintage technology restoration; Lego pinball machines; tin plate models; picture pancake making; collecting Tamagotchi; making grotesque models for a lo-fi TV series; making mini scenes to 1/6 scale of Sindy doll collection; and, turning Action Man into beautiful ladies and angels.




Patel and the Artangel team have evidently had fun arranging the pieces across the vast spaces of the building. Handcrafted clay sculptures of the human form crowd amongst fantasy creatures, grotesques, and a mosaic of female torso. A vitrine positioned under the Wetherspoons’ GLASS COLLECTION POINT sign contains a collection of glass jewellery. 20th century technology is arranged amongst fantastical model worlds. A whole wall is dedicated to dollshouses, architecture, representations of cities, and urban play. Quilts and tapestries hang within the building’s delivery, in front of Patel’s own car, resplendentlywrapped in carpet.

The whole collection has the feel of a department store about it, but one more akin to the playful excel of the 1970’s Big Biba (see 00181) more than the average Debenhams – something that isn’t by accident. Artangel, who have been producing cultural site-responses since 1985, selected this building because of its pre-Weatherspoons history. Grade II listed, the venue dates from 1895 when William and Richard Grant opened a grand department store, Grants, bringing over 60 departments including fashion, tailoring, hairdressing, hardware, glass and ceramics, and several restaurants to Croydon, newly designated a County Borough and about to undergo a process of civic overhaul and improvements.

Not far from the UK’s first international airport, Grants grew in prestige both locally and globally, and remained central to the town until its closure in 1987. Its façade contains details referencing the buildings connection to handmade textiles it once sold, while the interior carried little of the department store romance – until Patel’s packing it out to return it to a semblance of its former energy.




The joy of the historic department store is the intermingling of the decorative, practical, prosaic, fashionable, and everything else across the consumer landscape. Come As You Really Are also includes such a cross-section, with many of the included works made by people who might consider themselves fine artists, cheek by jowl with resolutely non-fine-art collections. This helps break down performative divisions over what is and what isn’t art, who is and who isn’t an artist, and instead joyfully celebrates this breakdown of silos with an eclectic and somewhat-chaotic hang. It’s a real journey through individual ways of seeing and shaping the world, and puts into public hundreds of personal and private practices.

Come As You Really Are is presented in Croydon until 20 October, but the project continues and will recur in various forms in venues across the country from Swansea to Sunderland, Cornwall to Londonderry. As such, Patel is keen for people to continue to propose their personal collections and hobbies to the informal archive as the conversation continues across the country.