The Future will be handmade?
We understand that the 20th and the 19th centuries are unrepeatable in ecological terms but in what way? How the majority of humans are making a living today and how they enter the future has a lot to do with it.
1
The Hackney Cut
The changing ecologies of clean and dirty. As the river Lea bends and turns in through Hackney Marsh, it leaves a part of the commons known as East Marsh on the other side. This connects to the rest of the marsh through the White House Bridge…
Hackney Marsh Crow
I zone in on a crow. Each time it’s the same, sideways glances from the crow, turns of the head, then a few shuffles with the feet. Then when I get too close, the wings open up and off goes the crow flying close to the grass, barely off the ground.
Hackney Marsh 1 2 & 3
… within its history is a chain of role reversals that unravel in this global age and produce new directions for the Commons land. Early in London’s history this was a proper marsh, flooded at will by the river Lea.
Lifeisland
.. the bearer of memory in a different conception of landscape. At the heart of it is space to do your own thing, make your own life and livelihood. It enabled a culture of independence, the East End way of doing things. An irreverence, which grew out of rubbish.
Westfield Gardens
.. if you look out across the grand open landscape, you could really be anywhere. Anything local is just an add-on or a name game. But the critical thing is that these scapes don’t connect to each other in ways we expect; instead they relate to each other more by what..