This project aims to bring a shop’s commercial history to life by going beyond a simple list of names and dates. Based on my ongoing research into the commercial evolution of each shop on Stoke Newington Church Street since the mid-19th century, and powered by AI, it imagines what the shopfronts of past businesses at a given location might have looked like. As there are only a few archival photographs of Church Street’s shops, and no example of a complete visual timeline of a single premises, I consider this approach to be the next best thing.
The images, each produced through several iterations and adjusted as needed until I reached a result I was satisfied with, are not intended as fully accurate or hyper-realistic reconstructions. Instead, they are visual approximations that convey a general sense of each period. Their synthetic aesthetic—while not originally intentional—is, in my view, a desirable feature, as it makes clear that these are not real photographs but AI-generated interpretations.
I hope this project offers people a newfound appreciation of individual shops and, more broadly, a better understanding of the street’s commercial evolution over time. These changes are not just visual or economic, but reflect wider societal, technological and cultural shifts—shaping, and shaped by, the everyday life of the area.
Stoke Newington History 