[ 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 :

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[ 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 :

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[ 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 :

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[ 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 :