New Londoners: Reflections on Home is a collection of photographs and stories by young refugees who have been mentored by a selection of London's most established and up and coming photographers.
The book was launched by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, at the Tate Modern on October 20th.
The New Londoners come from around the world, with diverse experiences and backgrounds. They are aged from 13 to 23, and come from ten different countries. The participants all share one common experience: they are young refugees separated from their families and homes, who are re-building their lives in London.
Photographer mentors on the project are: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Gayle Chong Kwan, Marysa Dowling, Suki Dhanda, Jillian Edelstein, Liane Harris, Crispin Hughes, Anna Kari, Anthony Lam, Jenny Matthews, Jo Metson Scott, Sarah Moon and Ilona Suschitsky, and Othello de Souza Hartley.
The book has additional contributions by writer Hari Kunzru, broadcaster George Alagiah and curator Charlotte Cotton.
Through the work we glimpse a side of London little seen and understood, from the point of view of some of the city’s newest arrivals. It reflects on their experiences of home: both the place they have left and the place where they have arrived.
For further information about the New Londoners project, click here.
IRISH WAKES have gone online. Ireland’s first online memorial site [www.inlovingmemory.ie], launched in recent weeks, offers families and friends of dead people an opportunity to record the life stories and their memories of loved ones in words, pictures and video.
The site is the brainchild of business partners Hugh O’Donnell and Joe McGuiggan.
Contributors can tell the story of their nearest and dearest by uploading anecdotes, shared memories, photos, music and video clips.
Mr O’Donnell, a restaurant and bar owner in Killybegs, Co Donegal, said: “The site continues online the tradition of the Irish wake where stories are told and memories shared.”
Co-director Mr McGuiggan, a Derry-based Library Service Executive, said: “Irish people have a strong love for remembering their dead as seen by attendance at wakes, putting memorials into newspapers and by sending out memorial cards.
“They now have the opportunity to tell the life story of their loved one in a very visual and interactive way, and record it for future generations to appreciate.”
The website allows the person who creates the tribute to have editorial control of all shared memories which come in from friends and family. Nothing can be added without being screened by the tribute controller. One of the first tributes on the site commemorates the life of Killybegs fisherman Noble Morrow, a father of four who died in 1986 at the age of 39.
His brother Norman uploaded this memory: “On one occasion, he came off his motorbike on the way back from the shop. While our parents fretted over his cut knee and what might have happened, all that bothered Noble was that I didn’t open the Coke until it had settled after bouncing all over the road.
“Coming off the bike was history, drinking the Coke was more important. Noble was talented in many ways but I suppose Noble’s greatest gift was that he never had a bad word to say about anyone.
“Wherever he is now, I’m sure the front yard is cluttered with bits of engines, a few buoys, a few battered air tanks and the compressor will be humming away doing its job!
“Noble, we miss you.”
Anne Keeney-Amir who lives in New York was devastated on hearing of the sudden death of her sister Bernie in Killybegs in 2005.
“When a friend submits a photo I have never seen before or a shared memory I hadn’t heard about,” she said, “I feel I am part of a community that remembers what a wonderful person my sister was.” The website can be visited at www.inlovingmemory.ie
A Crisis in Urban Creativity? Reflections on the Cultural Impacts of Globalisation, and on the Potential of Urban Cultural Policies
by Dr. Franco Bianchini
Paper presented at the international symposium The Age of the City: the Challenges for Creative Cites, Osaka, February 7th-10th 2004
ABSTRACT: The work in progress presented at this symposium considers some aspects of the cultural impacts of globalisation (1) on contemporary Western European cities, and some of their implications for urban creativity. It concentrates on trends which have the potential of undermining the conditions for urban creativity. These include the following: the dispersal of urban functions and the problem of the ‘hypertrophic’ city; the emergence of ‘non-places’ and of the ‘experience economy’; the reduction in leisure time for people in work; the consequences of ’information overload’ and of the ’audit explosion’, particularly for public sector organisations. The paper then considers the creative potential of a further trend: the increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural composition of cities in the UK and other European countries. The concluding sections of the paper discuss aspects of the potential of urban cultural policies in counteracting an emerging crisis in urban creativity and innovation.
by Dr Franco Bianchini International Cultural Planning and Policy Unit De Montfort University The Gateway LEICESTER LE1 9BH ENGLAND
I came across the following excerpt from James Clifford's The Predicament of Culture, reproduced in Interpreting Objects and Collections, Susan Pearce (ed), Routledge (1994):
Clifford is writing about the way we value objects in collections and notes how we find "intrinsic interest and beauty in objects from a past time" and how we assume that "collecting everyday objects from ancient (preferably vanished) civilisations will be more rewarding than collecting, for example decorated thermoses from modern China or customised T-shirts from Oceania...Temporailty is reified and salvaged as origin, beauty and knowledge". (261-62)
This pretty elegantly sums up, I think, a central issue for the practice of archaeology in contemporary contexts. Of course, an interesting question is whether shifting the focus onto the contemporary for the purposes of collection can constitute merely another order of reficiation--the reification lying more in the system of collection than the things collected.
Dublin divided? Deep ecologies and social complexity
I was recently thinking about popular conceptions of Dublin urban geography. The most dominant one is probably the North:South divide. Quoted from a site found from a quick Google search for 'Dublin inner city culture' (www.streetsofdublin.com):
"Traditionally, a north versus south division has existed in Dublin with the dividing line provided by the River Liffey. The Northside is generally seen as working-class, while the Southside is seen as middle and upper middle class. Dublin postal districts reflect the North/South divide, with odd numbers being used for districts on the Northside, e.g: Phibsboro is in Dublin 7, and even numbers for ones on the Southside, e.g: Sandymount is in Dublin 4." (Read the rest of the page here)
The article does go on to give a deeper history for divisions and also discusses East:West issues. What I was thinking was, however, that I feel our project should make some direct statements about the problems with such reductive and essentialised divisions. Bifurcating the urban fabric creates dangers territorial conceptions and in many way reifies boundary - almost regressing debate to early 20th century siedlungsarchaologie (settlement archaeology) - advocating notions of Gustaf Kossinna's kulturkries (culture area).
I feel our project - through the optics of social research, archaeology and art - has the potential to offer constructive complexity to the conception of Dublin's geography. Most critically, it should add two more dimensions to the standard 2D boundary lines of N:S bifurcations. Adding both depth and temporality.
It's an ambitious goal, but one certainly attainable - developing a process that both captures and enlivens the flow of a 4D conception of social space in Dublin in which all civic participants can feel they have representation and a stake.
Food for thought - I thought we might consider a previous inner-city oral history project - Murmur. Instigated by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority as part of of the 2007 Bealtaine Festival, we saw a series of metal green ears add to the fabric of Dublin's inner-city streets. The project concept was simple - record locals who would in their own voice recount stories and histories of the local area. Passers-by could ring the number on the green ear and key in a code in order to have the recording played.
Today the green ears remain a residue of the installation, and the recordings are still available online at the project website.
What I wanted to reflect on was the difficulty in designing local story-telling projects using new media while foregrounding issues of accessibility. Granted, many people today do have mobile phones - so it is understandable that this could be used as a component of the project. It is a playful idea to have the voices of the 'past' recounted through new and emerging media often personally associated with contemporary or future plans.
But that these local phone calls would cost credit I think is a flaw in the design. It is unfortunate that a freephone number could not have been used to provide more easily - less costly access. However, a counter argument would be that the phone credit/call cost would be something of a ticket price for the performance. However, the costs do not support the project, they support the corporations that own the phone companies.
I do not mean to fault Murmur directly, but I feel that with inner-city storytelling projects, care must be taken in designing the access to the stories. It is not enough merely to put the stories of local communities on display for those who can afford to access them.
(Disclaimer - if anyone has further information about the project and whether they did indeed provide for some gifting over of outcomes to the communities involved, please leave a comment)
Streetmapping: Artist Lian Bell from Out of Site Festival 2007
Dean Street pavement, Dublin Sunday 26 Aug 12pm-6pm
I planned to draw a map in chalk on the pavement of the Liberties area of Dublin, by asking passers-by for advice. The Liberties is an old area of the city full of intricate streets which have seen vast development recently and which looks set to continue at a hectic pace. The local community is an eclectic mix of older people, people who’ve lived locally their whole lives, immigrants, students and young professionals moving in to newly built apartment blocks. There is a lot of social housing in the area, with the reputation of being one of the poorest parts of the city centre, as well as having a recognised drug problem. However, parts of the Liberties are being gentrified and local businesses combine traditional markets (Thomas Street and Meath Street) with architecture and design studios, art galleries and antique shops (Thomas Street and Francis Street).
I moved into an apartment on Francis Street recently and don’t know the layout of the area at all well. To draw a map, I’d need a lot of help from passers-by. I was a little worried that if it didn’t work, or if something negative happened I would still be living around the corner. I did an hour of mental preparation before I headed out. It was a warm Sunday afternoon at a busy intersection with a wide pavement. Businesses nearby were open – a video, tanning and internet shop, a bookmakers, two pubs (Fallon’s and Nash’s), a Spar and a gallery.
As soon as I’d written a sign on a sandwich board (Hello. I’m drawing a map of the area. Can you help?) someone stopped and asked what I was doing. A young man living locally who was so enthusiastic about the idea even before I’d opened a box of chalk I was quite surprised. He promised to return later in the afternoon and even to bring me some water.
I drew the opening part of the map: what I could see from the pavement of the intersection and the street signs that were visible. I marked where we were with an X. Though I do know many of the main roads (probably about 15% of the map) and their names, I only wanted to fill in what people told me to, with the spelling mistakes, the warped scale, the missing streets.
Apart from one bathroom break, from about 12.15 to 5.45 I had about four 5 minute breaks – the rest of the time was filled with talking to people, explaining the project and filling out the map. In terms of getting people involved the event was far more successful than I had imagined it would be. People stopped and talked for long periods of time, argued with each other about the layout and names of streets, phoned and texted friends for help, returned through the afternoon, went to get other people to come and help, went to find out the names of streets they had forgotten. There were no negative comments (to me anyway) and the enthusiasm people had for the idea was a little overwhelming.
I regret not having more time to take stock of what was going on, maybe make a note of some of the stories and local history that people came out with and ask more about specific things that arose.
Attitudes towards the map ranged from puzzle-solving to friendly competition. Some people focuse¬d on how to make sections join up, some wanted to have their street put on it, some wanted to just make sure they added some street or placename to it. Some people sounded concerned with my request for ‘help’, asking if I needed directions. A couple of people offered maps.
All kinds of people stopped – tourists, locals, Dubliners, immigrants, kids, architects, a local historian, a couple of junkies, an alcoholic street artist, students. Irish, French, Swedish, German, Polish, American. Men came back and forth from the two pubs. A passer-by insisted on giving me 5 euro. Someone bought me a coffee. A young man from the bookies and a young woman working in a gallery around the corner came back throughout the afternoon. People chatted to each other around me.
Someone started talking about how there wasn’t enough street art in the area. A woman living in Blackpitts said the council should have a ‘real’ map of the area carved into the pavement – she was always giving directions to people who were lost around the area. Someone suggested varnishing the chalk map to the pavement. Some people were happy for me to cheat the map in the areas where the scale didn’t match up, others got me to rub out bits that were wrong.
The first man came back and talked about doing a version based around disabled access. One woman marked in a local food co-op with its opening times. One kid wrote his name in a corner. A man marked the layout of a local derelict church and an underground river. I gave a couple of boxes of chalk to kids and one to the street artist, who said he liked to draw Vikings and then played Raglan Road on a tin whistle for me.
At 5.45pm I packed up. Someone in the doorway of Fallon’s offered me a pint, but I was tired and went home.
Stated briefly, the archaeological sensibility is that capricious sensation (both embodied and intellectual) experienced by humans today which suggests that things encountered index or embody complex temporal possibilities. The archaeology of the contemporary past suggests that by seeing the past as a complex of things experienced today, the past is liberated from boundaries and distinctions built into its rendering.
Simply stated, things from different times, or of different peoples or just things which wouldn't normally be thought of as existing together are approached as co-temporal happenings. A mesolithic flint or a medieval wooden comb or a piece of rubbish left from last week's binmen are all of the same temporality because we experience them together, presently, now, as part of living of the contemporary. And by experiencing pasts in this liberated contemporary sense, many new possibilities could be made evident - such as in Chris Witmore's photographic studies of squatter's dwellings in Argos, Greece.
Are Chris' photos any less 'archaeological' than an excavation of a bronze age settlement?
I've been reading a rather compelling book before bed. InTaking Things Serious: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance, Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes have compiled a series of narratives from designers around the world - revealing their personal attachments to some everyday things that, for them, have more-than-everyday-meanings. The book resonates with an insight I gained from reading John Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity. In Law 7, he reflects on the importance of emotion in design - saying that people have emotive connections to things:
"Aichaku (ahy-chaw-koo) is the Japanese term for the sense of attachment one can feel for an artifact. […It] describes a deeper kind of emotinal attachment that person can feel for an object. It is a kind of symbiotic love for an object that deserves affection not for what it does, but for what it is.” (Maeda 2008, 69)
Although we could deconstruct these sentiments as being essentialist or reductive, what they do point to is the importance of acknowledging emotive affect within the study of 'things' (read in here - 'material culture').
Perhaps this acceptance or exploration of emotive affect (and subsequent engagement/management of it) is what has been lost through the abstraction and sanitisation (emotional) of things through archaeological science to become 'data'.
Placing Voices - Voicing Places is a collaborative investigation and mediation of the contemporary heritages and material cultures of inner-city Dublin. Clanbrassil St and the Monto will be explored throughout Autumn and Winter 2008 through archaeology, art, digital storytelling, photography and sociology. The project hopes to inspire news understandings of the co-temporal qualities of the things both known, forgotten and sometimes remembered about the places we civically share.
