Celebrating South East Asia Through Art - An Interview with Charlotte Berridge
As part of London’s vibrant #celebrASIA festival, Charlotte Berridge, a local artist, showcased her beautiful illustrations of South East Asian maps. The festival, held at Battersea Power Station from 13th-15th September, was a three-day celebration of South East Asian heritage and culture. Each map represented a different ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) country, forming a trail that took visitors on a Grand Tour of the region.
Charlotte's stunning artwork added an interactive and educational element to the festival, captivating families and young explorers as they uncovered the fascinating facts behind each nation. I sat down with Charlotte to discuss her journey, her inspiration, and the creative process behind this unique project. See the gallery below!
Q&A with Charlotte Berridge
How did this exciting project come about?
There’s a lovely Ealing connection to this project. Kate McKenzie, founder of the much-missed "Store Collective" in Ealing (now relocated to Margate), organises festivals and was working on celebrASIA, an event created by Battersea Power Station to celebrate the rich culture and heritage of South East Asia. She knew my illustrations of Ealing parks and landmarks well from our previous collaborations, so she had my style in mind when pitching the idea of large format illustrated maps to create a “Grand Tour of South East Asia” inside the Power Station. This is how I ended up being commissioned to produce the final massive artworks for the festival.
How did you decide which specific landmarks, cultural elements, or natural features to incorporate into each of the maps? Was there a particular aspect of these countries that you felt was essential to capture?
Luckily, I didn’t have to choose the places to feature—I was given a fantastic list by Kate and the team at Battersea Power Station. Each illustrated map represented a different country from the ASEAN countries involved. It was important that each map featured an interesting collection of facts to engage families visiting the festival. I worked closely with Kate to ensure there was a great balance of different images on each map, and the embassies of each country reviewed the maps before printing to ensure they were happy with the elements we chose to feature.
Did you have the opportunity to visit any of the ASEAN countries you illustrated for the celebrASIA festival? If so, how did those experiences influence your artistic approach?
As I specialise in drawing architectural landmarks in West London, this was a very different challenge for me. Drawing ancient monuments like Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Pha That Luang in Lao PDR was certainly more challenging than capturing the classic symmetry of my favourite Art Deco stations. Adding animals to my illustrations was also a new experience, but I’m really pleased with how they turned out, especially my cheeky orangutan.
I did go on holiday to Bali a few years ago, so I used the shadow puppet that’s still on display in my house as inspiration for that particular piece. But I needed to rely heavily on Google and explore different photographs to ensure my signature style captured each place to its fullest potential. I particularly loved drawing the Shop Houses in Singapore—each of these houses is painted in different colours and decorated with fantastic tiles. I even created a version of this for my exhibition at Ealing Beat last month, and it was a great talking point with many visitors.
I definitely want to visit more of Southeast Asia after working on this project. There are so many incredible places to explore!
Charlotte’s work brought the cultural richness of South East Asia to life for Londoners at celebrASIA, allowing them to discover more about these fascinating countries through her artistic lens. While the exhibition may have been temporary, the impact of her illustrations will resonate with those who visited and explored this vibrant corner of the world, even if just for a few days.
