The Stratford Hoard

My boyfriend, Simon Murphy, is taking part in The Stratford Hoard and part of his collection of funny-looking guitars and homemade fuzz-boxes will go on display at Stratford Station this weekend for a few months. Stop by and have a look!

http://www.musical-den.blogspot.com/

Newham Welcomes The World

As we saw during the handover ceremonies, the Olympics is fast becoming a platform for mediocre corporate arts.

But all is not lost!

Ronald Corp and his New London Orchestra are pioneering a series of beautiful and culturally-sensitive performances in the community with their long-term project, Newham Welcomes The World.

In 2007 the project debuted with The Journey Begins, an unforgettable night. A 400-strong choir made up of locals kids and adults, and a full orchestra, performed a song cycle all about Newham, including our very own Newham Anthem! Sample: “We’re the centre of diversity, Newham’s the place to be!” Hope Massiah, who is nothing short of fabulous, provided the lyrics and a year later I’m still singing these songs to myself.

I’m only sorry that a recording of the event isn’t available, neither can I find an online lyrics sheet. All I can offer is some cruddy phonecam footage. 

The 2008 Newham Welcomes The World project was a different affair. Staged at our beloved Theatre Royal, Pass The Baton told interwoven stories of Newham residents old and young, and was preceded by a performance by the New London Orchestra. Judging by the number of mates and family cheering from the audience, the show was performed by local people.

Where so much Olympic baloney is based on the premise that East London was a wasteland until the IOC rolled into town, Newham Welcomes The World demonstrates that there is already plenty that makes this neighbourhood special. Hats off to Corp and the crew for producing wonderful work that is so fantastically relevant to the changes that are happening, and that encourages and empowers local people to tell our stories ourselves. It’s thrilling to witness work that reflects the people and places we know best and which doesn’t try to whitewash over the reality of life in East London. Newham Welcomes The World makes me feel heartened, hopeful and very proud of this area.

http://www.newhamwelcomestheworld.co.uk

Charlotte

Lillehammer

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to go to Lillehammer in Norway. Lillehammer was the host for the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Over the years, my friend B, who has a place in Lillehammer, has told me about the surge in nationalism that was tied up with the 1994 games, and about how problematic that was. I’ve found it useful to bear in mind as my own compatriots start to get drunk on the Olympic spirit.

During this trip we went to the Olympic museum which was so exactly how you’d imagine it that I can’t be bothered to write anything about it. One thing that stood out was a video presentation where the expression “It was better than we could have imagined,” was repeated many times.

But the part that I found the most interesting was the tat for sale in the shop. 14 years after the Olympics came to town and they are still selling off original bits of tat, models of the Olympic torch and programmes. In 2013 the same kind of crap will be coming to a car boot sale near you, no doubt.

This nasty piece of trash sums up pretty much everything that's wrong with the mixture of nationalism and grasping medal-greed.

Here are some notes I wrote about something else that we did whilst we were in Lillehammer, an Olympic thing.

Dots

The Heidelberg Project is an incredible art project based in a Detroit neighbourhood. Tyree Guyton is its originator. Please, go and have a look around the site and learn more about this fantastic place.

One of the things that Guyton does, alongside the other artists associated with the project, is to paint dots around the city. Large sections of Detroit are derelict and the dots bring a sense of humanity to the places where they are painted. When I see a painted dot it says to me: “someone was here, this place is bound up with people’s history, and these people are valuable.” The dots are of every colour and symbolise human diversity.

I was at The Heidelberg Project in January 2007. Guyton gave Kay, S and I some dot stickers. We decided to dot parts of the Olympic zone. Some of the dots remain, some are gone, but here are some pictures, and some of the notes I wrote to accompany them when I sent the images back to the Heidelberg.

I am gay and I went on my first date with my girlfriend Kay at this place. It used to be a gay pub, but now it's an estate agent. So many community enterprises and businesses are being forced out of the area because of The Olympics, only to be replaced with estate agents. The high street is full of them where there used to be regular stores, the estate agents offered the storekeepers and the pub owners money that they couldn't refuse. And now there is no gay pub in Stratford, nowhere for us to go where we know we will be welcome and safe, just another estate agent.

This is a big Olympic arch that is counting down the days left until the Olympics. It's outside the main train station in Stratford. Sometimes drunk and homeless people pee up against it.

The Olympics means that many people have been displaced from the places where they live and work. It is the poorest people and the most marginalised that suffer the most. The Keep Out signs are guarding a space that used to be a public park, but now there’s no park there. Instead, it’s being used as a temporary place for travellers to live. By traveller we mean Romany or Gypsy people. These folks are heavily discriminated against and vulnerable and it’s doubtful that the people living close by are very happy that they have come to live on a place that used to be the local park. The Olympics is causing the poorest and most marginalised people the most stress in my neighbourhood. Nearby to where this photo was taken is a housing co-operative that used to provide affordable places to live for artists and political activists. That’s gone now too.

Charlotte

Local colour

Graffiti for your pleasure.

Community Murals

We love home-made, off-brand olympic art like this.

Charlotte