‘The Peculiar People’ is an exhibition and event series tracing the history of ideological and social-political communal living experiments throughout the 20th Century to the present day. These include the pioneering industrial worker estates at East Tilbury and Silver End, as well as the many alternative ideological communities such as the Tolstoy-inspired anarcho-naturist colonies; each revealing Essex as a place where utopias were imagined, traditional ways of living were challenged and revolutionary politics, art, architecture and literature were born and flourished.

Focal Point Gallery’s main exhibition space will feature an extensive archival display speculating on alternative living experiments from the late 1800s to the 1980s, alongside visual art, architecture, design and literature that relate to these counter-cultural histories. The gallery’s second space will house an installation by the artist Christian Nyampeta. This will give a framework to an evolving radical library and dynamic programme of performances, permaculture experiments, readings and public discussions

which extend, question and re-examine modes of non-conformity within a wider cultural and political context.

The exhibition culminates with a shift from socialist-focused agricultural developments to the growth of the financial sector in the East End of London and Britain’s first credit card company establishing itself in Southend-on-Sea. This shifting landscape is explored through the inclusion of Cedric Price’s 1972 model of an unrealised proposal for a lightweight pneumatic roof over the pedestrian shopping area of the town’s High Street.