SHOCK CITY: RESILIENCE AND THE ANTHROPOCENE

Patti Ellis and myself were asked to represent LAT[E]WI and sit on a panel for the launch of Year of Resilience (YOR). A 2 day international academic artistic conference.
Patti talked about the students participation and showed the film that came out of the symposium. (I’ll post a link when it goes live.)
I talked about squatting housing and my contribution to LAT[E]WI. (featured 3 posts down)
My presentation was quite time limited but went something like this

Before becoming an undergraduate I was an outsider artist for quite some time time I’ve collaborated with collectives and local communities to put on raves, urban festivals, theatre and cabaret nights and also exhibitions in squatted and hired venues.

but I have been an activist for even longer. and my first activist challenge was housing. Working with the Advisory Service for Squatters giving housing and legal advice.

So when the chance to work with the LATEWI team came up it seemed an ideal way to bring these two passions together. As a research project investigating art within communities LATEWI was a way to look at art, communities and social engagement for me it was a way to look at the resistance to the gentrification from an artists perspective.

Due to a limited core of people within Latewi I worked on a large range of things, as IT and AV Technician, social media editor, graphic designer, I chaired the film screening directors talk and was also an exhibiting artist in the Latewi @ safehouse show.

For my work for the Latewi exhibition was based around the memory of objects. I took moulds from manhole covers and cast them in unlikely materials metals silicon plaster wax and glass. I situated them in unlikely places within delapadated house that was the gallery. After the social housing had been demolished to make way for the fancy apartments what was left from the original landscape? In many cases it was just these manhole covers.

Alongside the mad dash to profit from gentrification are a number of other factors. Housing benefit cuts and the bedroom tax have contributed to more social and private housing evictions and soaring numbers of homeless families in temporary accommodation. Official figures show that homelessness is rising – ‘In England, more than 81,000 households were found to be homeless during 2013/14.’ 24.000 of those are in London. also on the increase, rough sleepers with an estimate now at around 10,000 people sleeping on the streets.

My main driving force is the gentrification of the poorer parts of London. being a Brixton resident for 30 odd years I see my area being hit hard. Whole communities being uprooted and deported from their locality, traditional family run shops and businesses closing and parks and green spaces being built on. In the last year I’ve been working with different groups in and around my neighbourhood. Reclaim Brixton being one of them.

Ive workED with a small group – Bagage – Brixton Action Group Against Gentrification and Evictions. We produced this map of the threatened areas.

I also showed a short version of this which I consider to be as much activism as art.