Screening at Peckham Vision Community Public Event

Spectacle’s latest film ‘Bleacher on the Rye’ will be screened 6pm Wednesday 23rd July in the CLF Art Café, 133 Rye Lane as part of the launch of the community-built model of central Rye Lane as it is now.

The Peckham Vision event is from 3pm until 9pm which includes exhibition and creative activities, meetings and the screening of the film at 6pm.

 

Community-built model

Picture 10As explained on the Peckham Vision website “The Station Gateway site is a complex one with commercial buildings nestled amongst railway buildings, viaducts and arches. The site is divided into properties with addresses on Rye Lane, Holly Grove, Blenheim Grove, Station Way, Dovedale Court, and Blenheim Court. So we created a site map showing exactly where these places are and how they related to the plans for total clearance that we were beginning to hear about. This aid to discussion proved invaluable as during 2013 we took two deputations to the Cabinet, attended a Scrutiny Committee, and took part in many community fairs, events and meetings, and discussion about the issues raised by the plans. Then Network Rail published their proposals to clear the site and redevelop it completely. To be able to have clear discussions, local people needed to have a model of the existing buildings and their layout on the site and also the areas around the site. We had suggested to the Council during the consultations last winter that a model would be very useful for this purpose. But the Council turned down the idea as too expensive. So Peckham Vision decided to ask local people on our networks if they would be interested in making a model with us for use in the planning discussions. Many people responded enthusiastically, and over 30 are now taking part in our model making group under the expert guidance of local architects Benedict O’Looney and Clyde Watson from Peckham Vision. Local organisations supporting the project are the Peckham Society, Whitten Timber and Complete Fabrication, Khan’s Bargain Ltd. We acknowledge with much thanks their support for this community project. The model is at a scale of 1:100 and is slowly taking shape building by building. It should be ready for use in a few weeks.”

Picture 4Read the Guardian City article by Matthew Ponsford: Could ‘co-design’ help Peckham where community consultation failed?

 

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Bleacher on the Rye screenings

Our new film ‘Bleacher on the Rye’ on the proposed redevelopment on Peckham Rye Station by Network Rail has had two recent screenings in order to make local people and businesses aware of this plan that is threatening the station area. Tonight, 6th June 2014 6.15-7.15 there will a third screening at Goldsmiths University as part of the event ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Class and Space in Paris and London.’

The screening is free and open to all. Details here.

The film is still in development but has had two recent local screenings to raise awareness of the plans. At every screening the film is more developed and tweaked to respond to audience feedback.

Wednesday 28th May, ‘Bleacher on the Rye’ was screened at the exhibition ‘CO-IMAGINE the re-development of Peckham Rye Station‘ at Peckham’s CLF Art Cafe (Bussey Building). The exhibition brought together an array of imaginative visions for the future of the station and its surrounding area and an open forum panel discussion with speakers; Eileen Conn from Peckham Vision, local architect Benedict O’Looney and Mark Saunders of Spectacle. The purpose of the event was to provide the necessary space for discussion ahead of Southwark Council and Network Rail’s open ‘co-design’ workshops this summer, in an attempt to actively involve local residents and stakeholders in a collaborative design process to consult on plans for the imminent redevelopment of Peckham Rye Station Gateway.

Friday 30th May Cinema6 screened a slightly updated version of ‘Bleacher on the Rye’ in a Gentrification Double Bill ‘There goes the neighborhood‘ with ‘Concrete Heart Land‘ which documented the attempts by local Heygate residents, in Elephant and Castle, to resist the ongoing process of dispossession and gentrification. Hosted in the cosy arch of artist studios Arcadia Missa Cinema6 together with Full Unemployment Cinema and Southwark Notes opened a lively and fruitful audience discussion with other local activists and artists on shared experiences and strategies.

If you would like to organise a screening of this film please get in touch.

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Olympic City Critiques: a Birkbeck reading group

The Olympic Games literally and symbolically ‘take place’ in major cities. They represent the mega-event par excellence which not only physically transforms areas of cities beyond recognition but also shifts the urban place imaginary. City growth coalitions eagerly bid against other cities to win this world-class spectacle primarily for the boost it is supposed to impart to the local politics of urban regeneration. Researchers and activists over the last thirty years have highlighted how such grandiose visions and accelerated development projects produce spectacular but also highly inequitable outcomes for urban citizens. As with other neo-liberal regeneration programmes, the vital question of ‘who really benefits?’ is highly pertinent. However, many of the texts which researchers have produced are not well known or well understood outside the various academic specialisms within which they circulate. We are setting up a reading group open to students, academics, activists and other individuals interested in exploring the social, economic and political processes of these spectacular urban mega-events from critical perspectives.

The first meeting of the Olympic City Critiques reading group will take place at Birkbeck in central London on Wed 30 March 2011 12-2pm (Room 351, Malet Street).
The second meeting will be on Wed 27 April 12-2pm (Room 253, Malet Street). Subsequent meetings will be two weeks apart.

The paper ‘Going for Gold: Globalizing the Olympics, Localizing the Games’ by J.R. Short, provides a useful introduction to the topics we will be discussing, and I can email it to anyone interested in attending. The paper discusses the siting of the Summer Olympic Games at the global, national and local scales: the increasing corporatization of the Games is examined, and their use in city marketing campaigns is evaluated.

If you are interested in joining the reading group, please send an email to Dr. Paul Watt.

We look forward to seeing you at what will hopefully prove to be a stimulating reading group series.

Paul & Martin

Dr Paul Watt (p.watt@bbk.ac.uk)
Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies
Department of Geography, Environment & Development Studies
Birkbeck, University of London

Martin Slavin
member of the East End based group Games Monitor
a network of people raising awareness about issues within the London Olympic development processes.

Poverty and Participation in the Media Screening

Poverty and Participation in the Media – Screening Event with Discussion

Wednesday 30th September 7-9pm
Reception 9-10.30pm

Poverty in the Media

Poverty in the Media

A participatory media project examining how the media treats poverty and those affected: Looking at opportunity and exclusion; representation, stigmatisation and stereotyping. With the wealth gap on the increase and virtual segregation of the classes creating urban ghettos – Does the media influence bridge or increase the divide?

Speakers:
Chaired by Fred Robinson, Durham University
Eileen Devaney, UK Coalition Against Poverty
Glenn Jenkins, Marsh Farm Community Outreach
Jessica Leech, Pepys Estate
Jheni Arboine, Larkhall
Mark Saunders, Spectacle

Street Lecture Theatre
London College of Communication
SE1 6SB

Open preview 3-6pm

Guests welcome
Please RSVP to confirm attendance
events@spectacle.co.uk
020 7223 6677
www.spectacle.co.uk/poverty-and-the-media