p h o t o s : london, winter 2011-12
Category Archives: Photography
m a t t e o
[ 23:41 sunday 9 january – haggerston road ]
on saturday the first of may, a little before seven in the morning, i reached stromboli on the overnight ship from naples. it was a perfect spring morning. the flat sea gleamed like silk. the sky was cloudless. dolphins raced and jumped either side of the ship’s bow as we neared the black triangle of stromboli. i caught one of them in mid-air with my camera.
the ship dropped anchor a few hundred metres off the port, turned and backed slowly until it was close enough to put a couple of lines to the quay. the anchor chain was wound in until the ship was firmly held in position and the ramp started to creak down to meet the quay. i was one of the first off, carrying the big rucksack on my back. i hadn’t slept much on the voyage or the previous night but i was filled with excitement and emotion to be back on the island.
there were many familiar faces in the throng of people waiting on the quay. i was overjoyed to find my friend pasquale, whom i’d thought was in australia. we greeted each other then he got back to his work. i walked up to the malandrino restaurant and had a coffee and pastry with my friend paolo. then he took me down to his house on the rocks in piscita where i’d spent my first winter on stromboli, and which he was generously lending me for the coming week.
alone in the main room, a spacious open cube with white walls and a polished cement floor, i put down my bags and stood still. the familiar sense of arrival and peace swept over me accompanied by the soft breeze passing through the room, the twittering of birds outside and the shushing of the waves on the little black-sand beach below. i organised my belongings, changed into shorts and sandals and walked out onto the terrace to look out over spiaggia lunga and breath the sweet air.
thus began the last day of my old life. i spent the rest of it wandering around the island, catching up with friends, seeking out people i hadn’t seen in a long time, reacquainting myself with beloved places, piecing together what had changed in the six months since my previous visit. the first of may is the “festa dei lavoratori” throughout italy, the workers’ day celebration. on stromboli there’s a big party at the port in front of one of the main restaurants with music and free food and drink for everyone. it’s the last big community celebration before the summer tourist season takes over. i knew lots of my friends would be there but by the evening i felt so tired it was hard to summon much enthusiasm for the walk across the island. i sat reading in my kitchen by the light of a candle, soothed by the waves and flickering flame. but in the end i put on my shoes, extinguished the candle and set out for the port, intending to show my face briefly then return.
the party was already in full swing when i arrived. a couple of hundred islanders were dancing and making merry to a band whilst the air was filled with smoke from a row of big charcoal grills on which meat was being cooked. i collected a glass of wine, spoke to some friends and danced half-heartedly. in my memory the picture of what happened next is that the crowd parted and a smiling young man walked towards me through the middle. i didn’t know him but the family resemblance prompted me to ask “are you matteo sforza, luigi’s brother?”. an hour later we were at the end of fico grande’s ruined old jetty, kissing.
the days that followed were sublime. matteo was working in a shop during the day. in the evening he would come to my house where we would eat dinner, play music, talk and dance. towards the end of the week we took the hydrofoil to lipari together to visit matteo’s older sister anna. the last evening carried the heaviness of everything we were trying to avoid thinking about. all too soon it was time for me to board the hydrofoil to milazzo and watch matteo’s face shrinking to a speck on the quay. i felt numb. matteo had talked of visiting london in october but it seemed distant and unreal.
three weeks later matteo arrived in london with his over-stuffed suitcases. i met him at the airport and led him back joyously to my house in dalston. we haven’t looked back since.
here are the photographs from that enchanted week on stromboli when i met him.
: c :
p h o t o s : occupying the new krankenhouse (ii 2010)
[ 23:13 thursday 7 october – haggerston road ]
following on from my previous post, the breakthrough in the krankenhouse’s search for a new building came with word that another group was planning to take over an abandoned courier warehouse in bermondsey for one night for a party. the krankenhouse group had been told that if they wanted to stay on afterwards and try to occupy the building they were welcome to do so. it sounded like the space was enormous, big enough to accommodate everyone from the group.
i arrived at the new space around 3am the night of the opening party with bertrand and a couple of other friends. the space was even bigger than i imagined, two vast open sheds with a two-storey office block attached on one side. by the time we arrived the police had already paid a visit and shut down the largest of the three sound systems. but the remaining two provided ample entertainment for the rest of the night. i cycled home at dawn.
as the party wound down a group of half a dozen krankenhousers established themselves with sleeping bags, water, an electric heater and canned food in one of the smaller rooms of the office block. i visited whenever i had a chance over the subsequent two weeks. the group’s primary objectives were to fend off any attempt by the building’s owner to regain possession of the building or any attempt by a rival group of squatter to displace them. just a few days after the party in the early hours of the morning an alarm was raised that some people were trying to break down one of the doors with a battering ram. the group rushed to defend the door and after a short skirmish they prevailed. that was the only serious attempt to disrupt the occupation.
on the day the crouch end building was evicted a steady convoy of refugees arrived at the new building with their belongings. by evening the floor of one of the sheds was covered with a patchwork of furniture, audio equipment, juggling kit and assorted bric a brac. for a few days people slept wherever they felt like throughout the office block but gradually pressure grew for a permanent allocation of rooms.
a couple of squat meetings were called where it was expected the question of rooms would be decided but each time it was put off. finally a day came when it couldn’t be avoided any longer. there was still a reluctance to broach such a contentious question but in the end one of the girls grasped the nettle and posed the question of how the allocation should be decided. several suggestions were made but it was rapidly agreed that the whole group should walk round the building looking at all the available rooms and people should put their names against a maximum of three rooms each. wherever a claim was uncontested the room would be allotted straight away. where claims were contested people would negotiate room by room until everyone had been assigned a place.
determining who gets which part of the building is the primary resource allocation question for any new squat. it’s an extremely complex problem and must be settled by a strong consensus if the squat is to be harmonious. if anyone feels resentful at the result or regards the process as unfair it can store up trouble for the whole community. as an ethnographer, and particularly as one with an insatiable interest in emergent collective decision-making, it was a great privilege to be permitted to be with the group during the process when this was decided.
it took an hour and a half for the group to make its way around the building, stopping at each room and discussing its pros and cons, then listing the people who wanted to make a bid for it. in some of the larger rooms various possibilities for sub-division were floated and a consensus needed to be reached on this before people could bid on parts of the space. there were a couple of heated moments when individuals sought to make a case that they had a particular right to a room they liked but otherwise the process was good-natured and slightly chaotic. the same girl who’d started the discussion took responsibility for making the list of rooms and bids. she also subtly defused the moments of aggro that cropped up. as the tour progressed i grew more and more impressed by her gentle shaping of the process.
after all the rooms had been inspected, all the sub-divisions had been agreed and everyone had put their names down against the rooms they wanted the group returned to the common room downstairs. with pleasing continuity this was the same room the advance group had lived in during the first weeks of occupation. people got themselves beers, settled down and the allocation process commenced. first the easy ones were apportioned, where only one person had made a bid. then the slightly trickier ones with two or three bidders. gradually the complexity increased and the trade-offs involved more steps. after a couple of hours i had to leave but i understand the process was still continuing two hours later. in the end only two people out of twenty-five felt unhappy with their lot, an amazing result from a process based entirely on consensus where there was no possibility for any person to impose a decision on anyone else. i think this experience did more to reaffirm my belief in democracy than anything i’ve witnessed before or since.
it was a joy seeing the community take root in the new space. such a huge blank canvas unleashed a surge of creativity and excitement in the group. by the end of march a bicycle stunt park had been constructed in one shed, a bar and lounge had been created from a twenty-five foot river boat in the other, the walls were decorated with artwork and smart graffiti. there were a couple of magical parties.
but the writing was already on the wall, hopes that agreement could be reached with the owner permitting the group to remain had come to nothing. it was clear eviction would come within a month and the tribe would have to move again.
slideshow and thumbnails below. the album is also on flickr.
: c :
p h o t o s : last days of krankenhouse (ii 2010)
[ 23:32 tuesday 5 october – haggerston road ]
after ten years as a squat the krankenhouse was finally evicted in february 2010. there had been several stays of execution. the occupiers had even reached an agreement with the landlord to stay several months longer in return for going quietly when the time came. however shortly after making this agreement a boy from a local estate injured himself on one of the fences outside the property and brought a claim against the community, forcing them to leave immediately. whether rightly or wrong, the community rapidly concluded the owner had arranged the whole incident, offering a suitable reward for the boy if he were to hurt himself in this way.
it was fascinating to observe the developments in the community once the writing was on the wall. whilst the squat was a going concern a myriad rivalries and resentments had been suppressed. without the motive to keep them in check all those forces surfaced with vigour. before my eyes the group began to splinter into factions. there were some who remained committed to keeping the community together and finding a new building large enough to house them. this is no mean feat in london, where there are fewer than half a dozen squats exceeding twenty permanent residents. but many people viewed it as inevitable that the group would have to break up into several smaller units.
the critical test for any squat as it approaches eviction is whether the community can maintain the discipline required to organise reconnaissance parties to scout for new potential homes, “opening” the most promising ones then “sitting” the most viable one. this final part involves a small group of five or six people staying in the opened building twenty-four hours a day with someone permanently on watch ready to raise the alarm should anyone try to invade the building so the group can mobilise to defend it.
at first it looked unlikely the group would get its act together to do this. but in the final weeks something changed and those who wanted to keep the community together gained enough support to start the process in earnest. with barely a week to go a new space, an abandoned courier warehouse in bermondsey, was found and occupied.
the photos show bertrand’s and tails’ rooms plus some of the main shared spaces in the krankenhouse as everything was dismantled and carried out to a convoy of ramshackle vans, themselves a staple of squat life.
: c :
p h o t o s : london xii 2009 – v 2010
[ 23:41 monday 27 september – haggerston road ]
here are forty-six photos from london spanning december of last year to may of this year. the set includes bertrand’s arrival and his establishment of a sewing workshop in the shed on my roof, various friends passing through london, life around dalston and the passing seasons as reflected in changing flora on the roof.
slideshow and thumbnails below. annotated copies on flickr.
: c :
p h o t o s : los roques corals
[ 02:10 wednesday 18 august – haggerston road ]
here’s one final album from the venezuela trip. sixteen photographs from an afternoon spent exploring a small bay on the north coast of gran roque. the prevailing swell breaks onto this side of the island. it is more rugged and inhospitable than the south. the bay’s sheltered by two guano-covered islets which create a calmer lagoon good for swimming. successive storms have piled up layers of coral, torn from the sea bed, until there is now a four foot high crescent surrounding the bay.
slideshow and thumbnails below. higher resolution downloads available at flickr.
: c :
p h o t o s : rasqui
[ 00:29 tuesday 10 august – haggerston road, london ]
after another batch of scanning here are forty-four pictures from my time on the island of los roques in january, where i found my long-lost friend matias along with his wife carolina and son esteban. uploading the photos brought back a host of memories. it’s one of the most intense and beautiful places i’ve ever been.
view a slideshow of the complete set here.
: c :
p h o t o s : gran roque
[ 00:08 tuesday 29 june – haggerston road ]
herewith fifty photos from gran roque, the largest island in the los roques archipelago. i arrived there with adrien on the morning of new years day when the island was asleep. after the turbulence of caracas the silence was amazing. just the shhh of the low waves on the white sand and the plop of pelicans plunging into the water.
from gran roque i made my way to the tiny island of rasqui to visit matias. coming back from rasqui after a few days gran roque seemed conversely like a metropolis, full of bustle and life.
view the set here.
: c :
p h o t o s : caracas
[ 00:54 friday 18 june – haggerston road ]
i’ve uploaded 26 photos from caracas taken on the last day of 2009 and the first day of 2010. as well as being venezuela’s capital city, caracas is also reputed to have the highest homicide rate per capita of any city in the world, predominantly gun related. it’s not a beautiful city. actually it’s about the ugliest city i’ve encountered anywhere in south america. all spanish colonial structures from the seventeenth and eighteenth century have been destroyed. even nineteenth century buildings are rare. most of the architecture is from the sixties and seventies. not much of it is any good.
clicking any of the four photos below will open a slideshow of the whole set. if you’re interested i wrote more about my experiences in caracas here.
: c :
p h o t o s : simmonds yat
[ 22:39 wednesday 2 june – haggerston road ]
on christmas day i went walking with mum and dad in the forest of dean. here’s what i wrote at the time:
this afternoon we went out walking in the forest of dean. everything was crusted in snow. a deep, timeless silence hung amongst the trees disturbed only by the crunch of our feet on the icy ground. the river wye was in full flood, winding around the limestone cliffs of symonds yat and churning tirelessly over the shallows. the sun hung low above the horizon and sent fingers of gold piercing the mist between the boughs. we got lost and ended up walking rather further than we intended. it was breathtakingly beautiful. i took photographs with a sense of wide-eyed wonder.
now, five months later, i’ve uploaded eleven of the photos. you can see them all here.
: c :
// charles armstrong // 