Spectres of Modernism at Raven Row, London, 2 February 2018

Join us at Raven Row on Friday evening 2 February for a live programme of performances, readings and screenings, and an exhibition and sale of work by the artists, writers, photographers and filmmakers involved in the Spectres of Modernism protest.

The event aims to draw attention to and raise funds for the legal campaign against Taylor Wimpey and the City of London council and to quash planning permission granted for the luxury development The Denizen. This would replace 110 homes for key workers with 99 investment flats but no on site social or affordable housing. It would also overshadow local homes, schools, businesses and Fortune Street Park.

Join us in making this a landmark case that transforms UK planning so that decisions are no longer skewed in favour of an elite.

Performances: Mark Aerial Waller, Iain Sinclair and Bill Parry-Davis, Nina Wakeford in collaboration with Lloyd Corporation.

Screenings: Zoe Brown, Katrina Palmer, Esther Planas, St Luke’s Community Collective & Friends (including Owen Oppenheimer and Bioni Samp), Maxim Gertler-Jaffe, Chloe Hur, Mai Omer Teplitzky (Goldsmiths Visual Sociology MA).

Readings: Tom McCarthy, Chris Petit.

Presentations: Stewart Home, Anna Minton.

Exhibition: Anthony Auerbach, Fiona Banner, Justin Coombes, Deborah Curtis, Adam Dant, Jeremy Deller, Arnaud Desjardin, Sarah Dobai, Chris Dorley-Brown, Katherine Fawssett, Margarita Gluzberg, Patrick Goddard, Pippa Henslowe, Siu Lan Ko, Immo Klink, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Fraser Muggeridge, Elizabeth Price, Anjalika Sagar – The Otolith Group, Eva Stenram, Eleanor Vonne Brown.

Funds raised from the sale of works (including the original protest banners) will be donated to the Save Golden Lane Crowd Justice campaign to cover the costs of a hearing in the Planning Court, to argue why permission for judicial review should be granted and, if successful, the further costs of the judicial review itself.

Friday 2 February 6.30 – 9.30 pm (Live programme from 6.45 pm).

Raven Row, 56 Artillery Lane, London E1 7 LS.

“A spectre is haunting the cynical overdevelopment that characterises London’s buy to leave property boom, the spectre of modernism!” #savegoldenlane

London Review of Books on Spectres of Modernism

Free exorcism with every Taylor Wimpey ghost home by Anna Aslanyan, LRB Blog, 7 December 2017.

Colourful banners hang from the balconies of Bowater House: ‘Under London, heaven’s light, grow life, not loot,’ one of the 21 slogans says. Another: ‘One day will this shadow fall.’ The building is part of the Golden Lane Estate, a Grade II-listed social housing complex designed in the 1950s and built on a bomb site in the City of London. Bernard Morgan House opposite is shrouded in white sheets bearing the logo ‘Taylor Wimpey’. The developer is about to demolish the building, which housed key workers between 1960 and 2015, and replace it with a 10-storey luxury block called The Denizen.

The display on Bowater House was designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio and curated by Clare Carolin. Artists and writers including Fiona Banner, Tom McCarthy and Iain Sinclair came up with the slogans. The installation, entitled Spectres of Modernism (‘A spectre is haunting the cynical overdevelopment that characterises London’s buy to leave property boom, the spectre of modernism!’), was created to support Save Golden Lane, a campaign against The Denizen.

Taylor Wimpey will sell all its 99 apartments privately, meeting its obligation to provide social housing by contributing £4.5 million towards 14 council flats to be built somewhere else. The most expensive properties in The Denizen – a ‘refined haven in the heart of the City’ – are going for over £2 million. The building as currently designed will overshadow Bowater House, Prior Weston School and Fortune Street Park, where local children often play after school. The park will lose afternoon sunshine between September and March.

The sun was still shining in the park when I met Stewart Home there. Concerned that the new apartments will be sold to investors and remain unoccupied, he came up with the slogan ‘Free exorcism with every Taylor Wimpey ghost home’. The developers’ marketing strategy relies on the artwashing of urban decay in an area branded as ‘Culture Mile’. ‘Fashion designers, Turner Prize winners … and you’, a slogan spotted at another development, was co-opted by Eleanor Vonne Brown for Spectres of Modernism (her fellow artists include two Turner Prize winners, Jeremy Deller and Elizabeth Price).

Across the road, another council block is emblazoned with banners reading ‘Save our sunlight’ and ‘Stop overdevelopment’. The residents of Burnhill House are objecting to plans to redevelop Finsbury Leisure Centre. Islington Council consulted them about the project, but the revised proposals ignore their suggestions. A short distance away, yet another scheme threatens Bunhill Fields, where William Blake and Daniel Defoe are buried. The public garden will be deprived of light by two tower blocks about to be built on its edge. Boris Johnson approved them in February 2016, using his power as mayor to overrule Islington Council. In May 2017, after taking back control, the council gave permission to extend the nearby Finsbury Tower from 16 to 28 storeys.

Permission to build The Denizen was granted by the City of London’s planners, several of whom are associated with consultancies acting for Taylor Wimpey. (The borough has one of the highest approval rates for planning applications in England.) The only way to stop the process is through a judicial review. The campaigners applied for it in October and are waiting to hear from the Planning Court.

Home and I walked around the neighbourhood, stopping by two new Banksy murals; rumour has it they were commissioned by the Barbican to promote its art exhibitions. We passed people sleeping in doorways opposite the offices of Shelter…

Read the full article here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2017/12/07/anna-aslanyan/free-exorcism-with-every-taylor-wimpey-ghost-home/

Mafazine on Spectres of Modernism

Spectres of Modernism, Bowater House, Golden Lane Estate, EC1Y 0RJ

Artists protesting in style using banners on a building opposite the site where Taylor Wimpey have plans for a luxury apartment block. No plans for social housing – no surprises there! Bernard Morgan House was built in 1960 to house 110 key workers. Artists include Cornelia Parker, Fiona Banner, Gavin Turk, Jeremy Deller who are rallying against “political structures which permit such developments ruining communities and negatively impacting the lives of ordinary people”. Article is in A-N magazine and worth a read … and a visit to Bowater House if time permits! Peps Barkhan. 26th October 2017.

See the original blog here: http://mafazine.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2017/10/26/spectres-of-modernism/

Spectres of Modernism continued …

A big thank you to Mark Lungley leading the Gallery Visits last Friday and who was happy to make a detour to Bowater House, Golden Lane Estate, quietly tucked behind the Brutalist Barbican building. I hope others found it interesting. Despite being Friday afternoon and so close to the hubbub of the ‘Square Mile’, the area had a residential feel with a palpable sense of community. The artists, in conversation with the local residents, have used language/text, in the form of banners, to collage the block of flats opposite the intended luxury apartment block. This is protesting against the overdevelopment, which will overshadow local schools and properties, cutting out light and providing accommodation that will be out of the economic reach of the existing community. What I was interested in was the collective punch that this art project is hoping to offer to the community through collaboration. I believe most artists involved have ties with the local community (the curator is Clare Carolin .. who has lived in Bowater House for 20 years and this installation reflects her specialist interest in modern architecture and the aesthetic of protest) and it is the collective artistic voice making an impact on the everyday lives of people in London whose life is being impacted in a negative way. Also, I have a developing interest in text in contemporary art and discovered that the typeface used in the banners is Bureau Grotesque 37 (interesting name) which was used on the original 1950s signage on the Golden Lane Estate. Fiona Banner, one of the ‘Banneristas’, uses text and language frequently in her work and appropriately, language is a material that is dominant in urban landscapes. A final point is that the banners are going to be auctioned off to raise funds for legal fees to the Save Golden Lane Campaign. Someone mentioned that they didn’t think this installation was art, that it was protest. It is protest, for sure, but can’t you hear the artists using visual language and shouting from the balconies? Peps Barkhan. 31st October 2017.

See the original post here: http://mafazine.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2017/10/31/spectres-of-modernism-continued/

“A spectre is haunting the cynical overdevelopment that characterises London’s buy to leave property boom, the spectre of modernism!” #savegoldenlane

New Spectres Of Modernism Shots

New shots of Spectres of Modernism: Artists Against Overdevelopment banner installation on Bowater House. Photography by Golden Lane Estate resident Charles Humphries.

Featured artists are: Mark Aerial Waller, Fiona Banner, Deborah Curtis, Adam Dant, Jeremy Deller, Arnaud Desjardin, Margarita Gluzberg, Patrick Goddard, Pippa Henslowe, Stewart Home, Siu Lan Ko, Tom McCarthy, Fraser Muggeridge, Katrina Palmer, Cornelia Parker, Esther Planas, Elizabeth Price, Anjalika Sagar – The Otolith Group, Iain Sinclair, Gavin Turk, Eleanor Vonne Brown.

Protest against the planned building of Taylor Wimpey’s overscaled The Denizen luxury apartment complex, which will steal sunlight from schools, homes & Fortune Street Park. Council tenants will lose up to 70% of the light from their living rooms. Denizen luxury apartments are being marketed off-plan to ghost home investors in South East Asia who won’t rent out or live in these dwellings; they’ll just leave them empty on the assumption they’ll accrue value in the overheated central London property market.

The banners and the development site face each other across Fann Street, at the junction with Golden Lane, London EC1.

“A spectre is haunting the cynical overdevelopment that characterises London’s buy to leave property boom, the spectre of modernism!” #savegoldenlane

Artist’s Newsletter on Spectres of Modernism

Spectres of Modernism: banner installation opposes new development in London’s financial centre by Jack Hutchinson, 12 October 17

…An installation of protest art banners emblazoned with slogans by a number of high-profile artists and writers has been installed on the balconies of flats opposite a planned luxury apartment block close to London’s financial centre…

…Explaining the reasons for the exhibition, curator Clare Carolin said: “All the people involved in the project – artists, Bowater House residents, [the] designer, curator and campaign leader – want to send a very clear message to the planners and developers: we are opposed to Taylor Wimpey’s development on Golden Lane and the political structures which permit such developments to happen all over London, ruining communities and negatively impacting the lives of ordinary people.”

Campaigners are also claiming the new building is massively over-scaled. It will overlook local homes, the adjacent Jewin Welsh Chapel, Fortune Street Park, Richard Cloudesley and Prior Weston Schools and the Golden Lane Children’s Centre.

Carolin claims that the structure will plunge the classrooms and playgrounds of the local school attended by 500 children into shadow. “It will block light from the much loved and very well used Fortune Street Park… it will block as much as 70% of light from some local homes. Bowater House, on which the banners have been hung, will be most badly affected.”

Most of the selected artists have close ties with the area, while others are invested in issues around the detrimental impact of gentrification. “All of them were selected because in one way or another they use language as a material of their practice.”

Others involved in the project include: Fiona Banner, Stewart Home, Fraser Muggeridge, Cornelia Parker, Iain Sinclair and Gavin Turk.

Carolin added: “In a worse case scenario this protest brings some expressive poetry to a horrendous situation and gives a voice to the local people who have been ignored and insulted by the developers and the City of London Planning Committee.

“In a best case scenario it raises the volume of the protest, spreads the word and helps us raise the funds that we need to support the legal case which will ultimately prevent this monstrous development from going ahead.”…

“We are still trying to raise money to pay for legal costs related to a judicial review. This is now our only hope of stopping the Taylor Wimpey development,” said Carolin.

Read the full piece here: https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/spectres-modernism-banner-installation-opposes-new-development-londons-financial-centre

Image above: the site of the installation, Bowater House (left), is directly opposite site of The Denizen (right), developer Taylor Wimpey’s planned luxury apartment block on the corner of Golden Lane and Fann Street. Bernard Morgan House (right), which provided 110 key workers with social housing, has not yet been demolished. There is no social or affordable housing within The Denizen luxury apartment complex.

“A spectre is haunting the cynical overdevelopment that characterises London’s buy to leave property boom, the spectre of modernism!” #savegoldenlane