Three Hours From: HACKNEY

The third journey took me around areas of east London, some familiar and some unfamiliar to me. I live in Bethnal Green but don't usually venture much further north from my home in Roman Road. This trip took me up from Mare Street in Hackney up to Dalston, then sent me straight back down to finish in Brick Lane, which is familiar territory to me.

So far this project has seen each outing reveal a theme or underlying trend to the specific journey. This trip around east London didn't immediately throw up any common points but I did notice eventually that a large number of details I was registering were concerned with obvious physical marks that people had made on the streets, ranging from the deliberate (stickers, posters, graffiti, political slogans) to the marks made by people simply living in the particular locations. With such a high immigrant population the area bears the characteristics and marks of the people who live there. Therefore the shops, language, signage and people themselves help paint a picture of the community and those that make it.

Where Next?

I'm a bit stuck now.

Initially I wanted to create a series of books, each relating to a different journey and dealing with the content in a different way - illustrative, typographic, photographic etc. Now I have many photographs, many notes, many points to make, but I'm unsure now where to take it all. I have way, way too much information.

I want to pick three journeys to compare and contrast the different areas in terms of the people there, and the way people and place relate. South Ken being upmarket with its royal history reflects this in the cleanliness and architectural detailing, for example, whereas Hackney is scruffy, weathered and rough-round-the-edges, with a high immigrant population and some very underprivileged neighbourhoods. The people I saw and heard in each place varied hugely and I got some great images of a few of them.

Outcome: MARKED TERRITORY series
Three books, each focusing on one journey, documenting the marks people make on their environment and what this tells us about their relationship with their surroundings, both current and historical. The books will tell the story of the areas' people using type, illustration and photography.

Three Hours From: CAMBERWELL

On this second journey I ended up walking from Denmark Hill in Camberwell to Clapham Common, via Brixton and Stockwell. Initially it was difficult to find a focus as I started out in a fairly mixed and quiet residential zone.

However, by the time I'd reached Brixton I had noticed a proliferation of churches and religious centres en route that suggested an ongoing theme of faith and religious devotion. This trailed off once I got into Brixton but here with the noise and visual blare of Brixton on market day I developed an interest in the strong community I witnessed, largely Afro-Caribbean, and how an area of town known for being dodgy and shabby is also home to genuinely cheerful and community-spirited people. When I reached Clapham I saw an altogether different community. The weather was glorious so people were littered across Clapham Common sunbathing and chatting. They were a community in that they were all out together. But they remain within their social pockets. As I understand it, Clapham was shabby and run-down until about the 1980's when the property-market exploded, and the 'Sloane Rangers' (sons and daughters of both the aristocracy and the upper-middle classes, who, either single or married, wanted to work in London), who traditionally bought or rented in Chelsea and South Ken, could not afford to. It became necessary for them to find new areas to colonise, and Battersea/Clapham/Balham were just across the water, and still close to the West End and the City. Thus, the gentrification of these areas.

While it's got a lovely atmosphere, I felt like the little groups or pairs of people in cafes, on the common, etc. were isolated from one another. I saw lots of people shooting disapproving looks at playing children, tutting at dogs, sitting quietly on their own reading books. There wasn't any real sense of community, nothing like that I experienced at Brixton.

Three Hours From: SOUTH KENSINGTON

Despite changeable weather I really enjoyed this first full-length journey. I literally wandered in whatever direction I felt like, not looking at a map once. This strategy took me on a journey through the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, one of the most affluent and beautiful boroughs of London.

I hoped that on each journey I undertook for this project, a defining theme or feature specific to each individual walk would emerge. In this case, I found myself continually noting architectural detail, the intricacies of ironwork, carvings and sculptures. With such a proliferation of historically rich and important buildings in this royal borough, I think the focus of follow-up work for this first outing will be the attention to detail and the resolute high presentation standards of this area of London. As the royal borough, it is imperative that Kensington is kept as pristine as possible; the rare piece of litter on the streets looks guilty and lonely, graffiti is minimal (removed immediately) and the streets are patrolled by wardens particularly concerned with keeping it clean and orderly.

The defining artworks of Kensington are in most cases hundreds of years old. Their grandeur and detail have been designed to showcase the wealth, prosperity and regality of the city, and to continue to bear evidence of this through the centuries. They are built to last, considered, and very well-guarded. This is an interesting contrast to the edgier, less privileged areas of London, where the surfaces of the streets are continually being modified and adapted. Artwork is more transient, rules of preservation less stringent. The pride and grandeur evident walking through this affluent pocket of West London will be the subject of my work for this first journey.

Wrong-footed - Progress update

Despite a very disheartening trial run, during which I lost the will to live somewhere in the middle of a puddle in Hackney, I am going to continue with this concept. I will also continue to research the Situationists because the writings I have been reading are genuinely interesting and I think they will inform my observations and the conclusions I'll draw from what I will see.

Quote: Raoul Veneigem

All we have in common is the illusion of being together. And beyond the illusion of permitted anodynes there is only the collective desire to destroy isolation... By producing isolation, contemporary social organization signs its own death-sentence.
The Revolution of Everyday Life:
Impossible Participation or Power as the Sum of Constraints