306: Living Under the Shadow of Regeneration- one year on

So a year ago we launched 306:Living Under the Shadow of Regeneration at the Cressingham Rotunda, a massive 85-90 people attended, thanks to everyone of you. Thanks also to Paul Sherreard and Patrice Lawrence for support Karen McCarthy Woolf, and Tolu Agbelusi for bringing their poetic beauty and Yomi Sode our warm and welcoming mc. And not to forget the Cressingham gardens Residents Association especially Andrew Sherman and of course all the contributors.

The Cressingham book, as people now refer to it, is now on three continents; in the hands of academics, artists and activists in America, Austria and Australia. And now for the letter B… Though initially conceived as a limited edition after the horrific events at Grenfell, we felt it made sense to try and reach a wider audience; what we have in common is the experience of a community that are simply not listened to.

The book was reissued in September and is available at the reduced price of £5 (+ £1.50 p&p if ordered through the website.) Though there has as yet been limited time for PR it has had some attention and outings. And we are looking to arrange more. Any ideas get in touch; things like can we do a reading, hold a bookstall, if you have press contacts.

The book had a review by Sophia Akram in The Canary “A small community has now triggered one of the biggest conversations on social housing since Grenfell.” Contributors read at the closing event for Sanctum Ephemeral, the exhibition by by Mark Aitken, and featured on Art Speak hosted by John Flannery with Anne E Cooper, Sara Adem and Angie Hill in conversation and readings from the book, broadcast on three radio shows. Also Anne E Cooper, Tijana Vukicevic and Carl Molam read from the book at a screening of Dispossession in the Rotunda,in the 4th May which was part of the Herne Hill Film Festival.

Contributors to the book have been working with The Rainbow Collective, documentary film makers from the Ledbury estate. Tijana Vukicevic and Carl Molam have completed their shoot and the first two beautifully cut films were screened at The East End Film Festival in April. Other contributors to the book have been in conversation with Wandsworth radio about life on Cressingham, a project which is also set to continue.

Prior to the launch Anne did readings at The Morley Galley Journey to justice event, Reel News film shows and Brixton Bookjam, thank you for support on our journey. In fact none of this would have been possible with out your love and support. You know who you are, Many thanks.Plans are underway for an event in September about austerity, housing and precarity, get in touch if you would like to be involved and watch the website for details.

 

What people are said about the book –

306 is a vital, lyrical, funny and anguished document of a London community under threat of destruction. The voices here are allowed space to reminisce about life in Cressingham Gardens fondly but unsentimentally. They know where they live isn’t a perfect place, but it’s their place and they’re fighting to keep it. If you read 306, I think you’ll hope they win the fight.

Toby Litt, Author and Senior Lecturer, Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck

A must-read primer for anyone interested in regeneration and its multiple effects. Giving an extensive voice to the residents themselves, they conjure up a rich mosaic of community how it is lived; in chance encounters; in a life that is lived both behind closed doors and in open, shared spaces. When the architect, Ted Hollamby, designed the estate, it was with family, community, outside spaces and quality of life for all, no matter what their income. To Lambeth Council, it may be little more than prime real estate, with a nod to the needs of community in terms of provision. The residents, and those who have worked with them to produce this eloquent book, show that Cressingham Gardens, and other estates at risk of ‘regeneration’,  are much more than that: a place to call home, and worth fighting for.

Katharine Quarmby, award-winning writer and journalist 

This is a marvellous book which perfectly captures in word and image how the dream of regeneration – as espoused by local authorities and the regeneration industry – can in the words of Anne E Cooper become a ‘living nightmare’ for estate residents. She and her fellow Cressingham Gardens’ contributors should know, since it is they who have had to live through the regeneration with all of its Orwellian doublespeak language.

Dr. Paul Watt, Reader in Urban Studies, Department of Geography, Birkbeck, University of London

Thank you for your support!

By September we had sold out of the first edition and were able to issue a revised edition with some important updates to the introduction and appendix. Overheads for this new edition are slightly less so we can make it available at

£5 (or £7.50 solidarity price) + £1.50 P&P. To order your copy go to the contact page and drop a line

Diary June 2018

Friday 9th June

Thrilled to have an opportunity to read poetry of women in the struggle at this all day event as part of the Solus and the City project. It takes place at Greendale, London, SE22 8BB from noon til 3.00pm.

How to get there: Greendale Playing fields are a bit tricky to find. The easiest way to access the shed is via East Dulwich Sainsbury’s – 80 Dog Kennel Hill, London SE22 8BB

This event is part of the Antiuniversity 2018 festival 9-15 June. See the full programme on www.antiuniversity.org

This innovative project is designed by Degenerate Space   exploring how women are expected to provide solidity, structure and sanctuary whilst they paradoxically disproportionately experience unstable positions in housing, work and society. Part of the project consists of the construction of a small Solitude Shed – a structure based on rural mountain bothies – built on an urban site in London.

Accompanying the structure will be a collection of material written from female perspectives exploring themes of solitude, sanctuary, stability and individuality. Degenerate Space write “we invite the public to get together and explore the project and its themes through discussion, writing and traditional women’s work songs. Together, we will celebrate the women of the city’s past, present and future.”

The installation/exhibition will be up throughout the whole of June and is part of The London Festival of Architecture, details here. The LFA is an event which celebrates London as a global hub of architectural experimentation, practice and debate. The festival runs from 1-30 June 2018 with a lively and diverse programme of public events across London this year exploring the them of exploring the theme identity. Full programme https://www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org/

In addition I will preview a selection of photographs entitled Intervals of  Refuge, that explores visually space as refuge and sanctuary in the urban environment.  To undertake this work I investigated the etymology of the archaic term querencia, derived from the Spanish querer – to wish, want, love, desire, cherish, hence as a verbal noun querencia implies a desired place. The terms refuge and sanctuary suggest semantically a retreat from rather than a retreat to. Yet we actively seek out open space, green space, space in nature as we are part of nature.  In an urban context, spaces exist at the edges of the urban and in the interstices. We can find these spaces if we look for them.

However for women who  have proportionally less income and still bear much of responsibility for child care and other caring responsibilities it is the latter which are more practical, more important to us. And arguably access to spaces of calm, of peace, of tranquility are a therapeutic and spiritual need, not only a pastime but a political act. The struggle to claim them, to use them, at a time when public space is shrinking, the struggle for access to urban space and the urban commons is becoming as relevant as the struggle for housing. The roots of this struggles are ancient, yet in a context of austerity, with hyper gentrification and state led privatization, the very epitome of neo-liberalism,Saturday  these are becoming the struggles of our time.

 Saturday 16th June

• Reading from 306: Living Under the Shadow of Regeneration and in conversation with Andy Bungay and Colin Crilly, NHS campaigner and Wandsworth Action Against Cuts, on Wandsworth Radio

Tuesday June 19th

Taking in part in  this housing event with the Rainbow Collective in Hackney 

 

 

Quote: Rumi

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.

Try something different.
Surrender.

– Rumi