Starting to look at art

During this week’s Many East End session, we asked members of youth organisation Tolerance in Diversity what they thought was the most significant event in the East End in the last two years. I’ll reveal their answer in a bit, but first a little about the session. (As we were starting to examine, and create, art this week, you’ll see the photos have taken on a post-modern feel).

Selecting photos

Artist Sarah Carne started off by asking everyone about the photos they had taken in the galleries last week to represent their favourite East End place, person, image and thing. Collectively, the group discussed each photo and sorted them into three categories: Definitely representative, Definitely not representative and Not sure. Strong strands started to emerge amongst the images, the strongest of which was family. Others included Canary Wharf, The Thames, water more generally and modern architecture. One participant had chosen ‘Turkoman’ to represent her favourite East End person, her brother. She said Turkoman reminded her of him when he was little dressing up in girls clothes and in her words, ‘being a girl’.

Turkoman

The ‘Definitely representative ‘ and ‘Not Sure’ photos were then gathered and saved, and participants will be adding them to their project portfolios.

Sarah then introduced us to her art.

Sarah Carne - Loving her Yugo

Sarah explained that she  does a lot of work in film and photography and that, in her words, ‘My art is all about me’. As well as showing us interesting commissions she has done on a variety of topics she also introduced us to what it would appear is the love of her life – her Yugo. The amazing Yugo has been photographed, written upon, Letrasetted (if that’s a word), converted into a cinema, use to ferry people between exhibitions, travelled ‘home’ to Yugoslavia, rotted, molded, broken down and vandalised. And now Sarah is  writing a musical about it. The Yugo is Sarah’s. As art, it represents her and reflects her. The Yugo also provided the subject matter for a series of photos, which when shown in quick succession, convert into a mini film. The combination of self, and the creation of film, was our inspiration for our next task.

Personalising a peg

Sarah gave everyone a peg and asked them to customise it to represent them. One person simply added their name using Letraset, followed by a semi-colon to represent the fact that he does a lot of computer programming. (The semi-colon occurs alot in computer programming, we were told!) Other pegs were converted into a girl with little pigtails and a shark. Others were covered in letters and stickers and one was not touched in itself, but attached to a Bangladeshi flag, to represent nationality.

Loving the peg

So, you may be wondering how all this relates to most significant event in the East End in the last two years. Well…

Sarah explained that the customised pegs, and other pegs if necessary were going to be ’brought to life’ in a quick film to represent that event, whatever the group thought it may be. So, a discussion began on possible contenders for this event. Suggestions included:

1. Construction of the Olympics site
2. Losing the bid to host the World Cup
3. English Defensive League march this summer
4. Construction of Westfield
5. Riots in Hackney

After some to-ing and fro-ing the group came to a consensus that, in their opinion, the most significant event in terms of impact on their East End was the English Defensive League march. Several of the group members had been there on the day, having joined lots of people in coming out against the march. In the midst of the tension, the EDL coach broke down, just outside the East London Mosque, and a previously unpredicted flash point erupted.  You can read more about the event here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14779772

So, using pegs, and a healthy slug of creativity, the group created a short film of the events of the day. We do have the film footage but haven’t had a chance to do anything post production yet so a photo will have to do!

Us and Them - In Pegs

And that concluded last night’s session. I’m sure we will be going back to this topic, and looking in further depth at why the group felt that this is the most significant East End event in the last two years. Because of the public sector strike we are not meeting next week, so the group are meeting independently. Leading on from examining what their East End is, they are going to be considering how they would represent it artistically. Their ‘pitch’ is going to be presented to the curator of View Tube in Stratford on 7th December. Watch this space…

Team bonding

Down at Docklands, we are working on a new concept for the part of the museum that looks at the Docks since 1945. The working title of this project is Many East Ends.

In order to tell as rich a history as possible in the new gallery, Docklands Strategy Manager, George Young, is doing lots of creative colloborations with all types of groups and individuals. One of these groups is Tolerance in Diversity, an organisation based in Limehouse led by young people for young people. TiD work to reduce discrimination and prejudice by delivering training and running events throughout London. They have worked with the museum before and we have invited them back for their input into the concept for Many East Ends.

Why the long face?

The process started last night, under the guidance of artist Sarah Carne. www.sarahcarne.org

Sarah asked everyone to think of  their favourite East End person, place, image and thing.  Everyone was given a video camera and asked to give their four examples to camera. This has delivered some very interesting footage that we hope to put online in the future, together with other footage as the project progresses.

After filming, and armed with a camera, everyone was asked to find examples of items in the gallery that connected to, or represented, their four examples. Here is a snap shot of some of them.

Canary Wharf model

Bridge for DLR

East End family

Bomb by William Ware

We then started talking and thinking about what everyone wanted to get out of the project.

Thinking of ideas

Sarah asked everyone to answer the following questions:

What skills to I bring to the project?
What do I want to get from the project?
What could stand in my way?
What skills do you need in the East End?

Hard at work

Lastly, Sarah led discussion on what elements of the East End would need to be included in the gallery when it was redeveloped, based on the thoughts from the evening’s activity. On initial discussion, the following ideas and elements were put forward.

• Politics
• Immigration
• Buskers
• A working DLR train
• A mock tube station – not Bermondsey
• Gangs
• The River Thames

Developing, expanding and honing this list will form a key element of this project as it continues towards Christmas and into the New Year. Next week we will be returning to it to see what ideas have changed or grown. We will also be looking at how far back in time the Many East Ends gallery should go, as well as having more fun with cameras, creating more bunting (as seen in the background of the photos) and adding more to our project portfolio books.

Here at the Museum of London we have decided to honour Dickens’ work with a major exhibition Dickens and London which opens on 9 December 2011 in advance of the 200th anniversary of his birth, in 2012.

We have plans for a number of social media initiatives that we hope will enhance both the exhibition and your visit, the first of which launches this Monday 12 September – a virtual Dickens Book Club’s on both Twitter and Facebook.

Although an open forum to discuss all aspects of Dickens’s work, we will be suggesting a book a month to read and posting our thoughts (and hopefully chatting to you about your thoughts) across both Twitter and Facebook starting with September’s chosen novel: Great Expectations.

Other confirmed titles so far include: A Christmas Carol (naturally for December!), Barnaby Rudge in January 2012 (we will let you into a secret, this is such a large novel someone in the office is already reading it!) and Oliver Twist in April 2012.

So why not join us as we explore some of Dickens’ greatest works alongside some of his lesser known titles.

We are also looking for you to suggest titles to include so if you have a favourite please do let us know either via Twitter or Facebook and we will try to feature them before the exhibition closes on 10 June 2012.

Our Twitter and Facebook accounts will also be home to sneak previews of what to expect when you visit the exhibition and insights from our exhibition curators via our blog pages again in advance and during the course of the exhibition, so be sure to follow us or check our website regularly.

Look out too for an exciting short story initiative launching in November based on some of Dickens’ ideas for stories and characters which did not find their way into print.

Have you ever seen such beautifully wrapped volumes?! If only all the archive could look so neat!

This is the work of Rosalind Foley, a student who has just completed a year’s training in paper conservation at University of the Arts, Camberwell. She loves to make boxes and re-package and is currently volunteering with us one day a week, helping to clean and pack the Port of London Authority Archive.

Working alongside her are Dominic Flook and Kate Barber. They are spending hours of their time gently hoovering and brushing away the years of London grime that’s gradually settled on the documents that are now so precious to us in the archives.

Out of interest, the little vacuum cleaner attachments are the same as the ones you can buy for when (ok, if) you clean the inside of your car!

Much of the volunteers’ time is spent gradually removing dirt from papers using ‘smoke sponges’. As there was so much chimney soot and smoke produced in London during the 19th century, this dirt attached itself to documents and now needs to be removed. Smoke sponges act like erasers, gently removing dirt without the need to dampen the documents. In some ways I suppose we are brushing away history, but then again we need to conserve the documents too!

The extra soft goat hair brushes were bought by one of our conservators when she was on holiday in Hong Kong.

We are making great strides with the cataloguing project. We’ll update you again soon.

Claire Frankland

Port & River Archivist and Project Manager.

From Friday, 20 of these images will form a free display at the museum.

In planning the display the hosts soon realised that they would not be able to feature all of their images and indeed ongoing work at the site after the selection process for display had been completed could not be included.

With this in mind, it was decided that the museum’s online resources such as its blog pages and social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter would be a great platform to share additional images and ensure that the ongoing story of the site could be featured in a virtual extension of the YOUR 2012 project.

Here, one of the display curators and visitor hosts, Dave Matthews, shares three images and insight from a visit to the area over the weekend:

Anish Kapoor’s Orbit Tower is getting larger by the minute. Every day it seems to take on a new twist!

Even at this early stage, it appears to be towering over the main stadium. When the project is completed, the tower will offer a viewing platform 115 metres (337ft) high.

As Newham’s regeneration projects gather pace, you can’t help noticing all the new planters and baskets full of striking flowers – quite a contrast to all the building work still going on in and around Stratford. No matter which corner you turn, there is evidence of change, and with the addition of the flowers, Stratford feels vibrant and colourful.

The Time Spiral, as it is officially known, can be found outside Maryland Station. This winding structure contemplates themes of time and space and will eventually be lit up. This twisted steel clock, created by artist Malcolm Robertson, originally stood outside Stratford Station. It was relocated to Maryland Station to make way for the new pedestrian bridge that links to the Olympic Park.

Be sure to check back regularly for more updates from the project.

This is a very different challenge: not only are there far more documents, but their structure is far more disrupted. Having learnt from our previous cataloguing, we decided to vary our approach. While it is essential to list some material at item level, others fall into sub-groups which can be adequately listed more briefly at series level.  This approach has been taken in relation to the documentation of a Working Agreement set up between the EWIDC and the main other dock company, the London and St Katherine Docks Company in an attempt to stop the competitive reduction of the rates charged for use of the companies’ docks which had brought the EWIDC to the brink of bankruptcy.

The Working Agreement heralded the beginning of the end for both dock companies as separate entities, and they merged in 1901. The EWIDC Minute Book for this period contains delightful evidence of the affection in which the company was held by some of its employees. At the end of the final entry, with the company formally wound up, an anonymous hand has added “Good Bye. R.I.P.”

It is interesting to see this sentiment in relation to the dock company, perhaps balancing the usual perception of the companies as the villains in contemporary labour relations. I should add that the more typical view is also reflected in the collection!

Written by our cataloguer, Marie-Claire Wyatt.

Look out for our next PLA Archive blog post as we focus on the work undertaken to conserve  these fragile paper records.

Obviously feverish action is taking place to make sure everything is ready and looking fantastic. Knowing the effort that is needed to make this exhibition take place makes myself even more impressed by the rate of progress at the Olympic site. Already the Aquatic Centre is ready as is the Velodrome and according to the latest news this month so is the mobile basketball stadium. Perhaps the most amazing achievement is the biggest, the Olympic stadium itself, as can be seen below.

Efforts are now going on the make the surrounding vicinity look equally resplendent as can be seen by the following image below.

Construction efforts have now moved on to the left of the site.  (If you look carefully in the distance you can see the red brick Byrant and May building).

Further along you can see how the site is now being concreted over.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to one of the our tours called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Don’t forget to check this blog next week when I will be talking about art around the Olympic site and Stratford.

Peter

Curator of Social and Working History, Jim Gledhill, discovers a hidden world under Holborn. Listen very carefully, he shall say this only once…

One of my favourite gags in the Indiana Jones franchise is the scene in The Last Crusade when Jones says to the villain clutching a stolen artefact, “This belongs in a museum!” to which the bad guy replies, “So do you!” Sadly the life of a museum curator is not quite as adventurous as that of the fictional archaeologist, but every now and again we do get out and about to visit some unusual places. As a curator responsible for an industrial collection, this usually means visiting various workplaces, current or historic, and usually above ground. Recently I was invited by colleagues at BT Archives to visit a subterranean location which is a bit more off piste.

Approximately one hundred feet (30 metres) below Holborn is one of London’s best kept historical secrets. The Kingsway Exchange, so named for the purposes of misdirection, was originally built as a deep level bomb shelter for up to 8,000 people in 1942, although never actually used as such. Upon completion the tunnels were requisitioned by MI5 and MI6 and other agencies for wartime covert operations. After the war the General Post Office took over the site and extended the complex for use as a trunk telephone exchange (an exchange that connects smaller exchanges) that would be secure in the event of a nuclear war. Dug using shovels in what must have been back-breaking work, the facility was so secret that the soil was spirited out of London for disposal so as not to arouse suspicions. Kingsway continued to be a state secret as important government and defence communications were connected through it. These included the lines to Number 10, the Cabinet Office and the Cold War hotline between the White House and the Kremlin.

The British public only became aware of the complex in the 1960s when it was removed from the secret list. British Pathé made a film in 1968 showing the exchange in operation, but without revealing its location. At its height, the exchange could deal with 6,000 calls simultaneously and handled up to two million calls a week, around 15% of London’s trunk (long distance) telephone traffic. Following the introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling from 1959 (where the caller could make a long distance call without the help of an operator) the exchange became less important and was closed in 1980. In the 1980s the government used part of the structure as a back up for its PINDAR nuclear bunker located beneath the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. Since 1990 it has been used for storage only.

I visited Kingsway with staff from BT (the current owners) in order to investigate the exchange which I had recently acquired objects from for the Museum. The BT staff were drawn from different areas of the company’s vast operation (BT still owns the national telecommunications infrastructure). We entered via a non-descript door in a side street off High Holborn. After going down a flight of stairs, the visitor has to pass through a steel blast door – an unsubtle hint that admission is for authorised personnel only! Descending by lift, the visitor emerges in one of two large tunnels that make up the main structure. A series of shafts and interconnecting tunnels link up these enormous reinforced arteries. As you proceed deeper into the complex the sound of Central Line tube trains can be heard rumbling ominously above. I’m struck by what an undiscovered country London really is. There’s a goods lift down there that takes you up to a secret entrance in Chancery Lane tube station. During the Cold War even London Underground was not aware of the existence of this secret door (!).

The clandestine nature of Kingsway means that it is an entirely self-contained complex with an artesian well providing a fresh water supply and huge generators providing power. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis the facility was placed in ‘lock down’ and staff lived in it twenty four hours a day. Equipped with a canteen, bunk beds and even a bar, the complex was designed for its two hundred or so staff to maintain communications in the event of a nuclear strike. Now the disused living quarters have a ghostly feel to them that I’ve often felt visiting abandoned buildings formally so active (no wonder the producers of Dr Who have been making use of Kingsway for filming recently). When examining the rows of empty bunks and the cramped living conditions that accompanied them, one concludes that surviving a nuclear war would have been cold comfort.

I recently collected a Cheetah teleprinter which was used by BT internal security staff at Kingsway in the 1980s. I visited their former office, now empty and derelict. When collecting at former industrial sites I am often left wondering what became of the people who worked there. In the depths of Kingsway, beneath the working day world of pedestrians, cyclists and taxis, I get an even stronger sense of this. It’s difficult for historians to study the secret world – its inhabitants are usually very careful not to leave behind much evidence. Often they do not want to be found. I do know however, that someone typed away on the Cheetah’s keyboard day in day out in the depths of Kingsway and it was their job to make sure that this vast complex remained secure. It’s odd to think what a big deal that was back then when Soviet nuclear missiles were pointing at London and Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

Now even Cold War bunkers have become real estate: BT has put Kingsway up for sale on the open market. The Metropolitan Police have expressed an interest in using the huge fortified tunnels as a rifle range. Whatever becomes of the old exchange, the secret is now well and truly out.

Cataloguer, Marie-Claire Wyatt, explains more:

A few months ago the project to document the PLA Archive entered an exciting new stage, with the start of formal cataloguing. As you can see from the examples above, the archive has a very broad range of contents. However, its primary purpose is to document the history of the docks of London since the creation of the first enclosed dock system (the West India Docks) in 1799, along with the administration of the River Thames. The archive was collected during the 1970s and 1980s and has hitherto received very little cataloguing. The archive is quite disorganised, with no trace of “original order” – the structure of the papers while they were in use by their creators.

We have therefore chosen to give the archive a structure based on business function. It is deeply satisfying reuniting records which have been separated ever since their arrival at Museum of London Docklands and creating a formal structure which will enable the full history of the dock companies to be properly interpreted.

Due to the size of the collection, as a first stage we are concentrating upon the records of the nineteenth century docks. The docks were built by private dock companies over a period between 1799 and 1886, and were subject to the normal practices of competition and the need to offer shareholders an annual dividend. Relations between the dock companies could therefore be highly strained at times, a subject to which I hope to return in a future post.

Each dock company is being catalogued individually, and to get a sense of how this might work we began by listing the records of the East India Dock Company and the West India Dock Company, both companies with relatively small archives and therefore a simple collection structure. The catalogues for these will eventually live on MIMSY, the Museum’s catalogue system.

For these we tried listing everything at a very detailed level, so each minute book, financial ledger and file of papers documenting the construction or extension of the docks has been given its own description.  This is how I prefer to catalogue: it improves my knowledge of the creator and the background to the collection, in most cases the individual items are interesting in themselves and the descriptions are the most useful to researchers. It is, however, very time-consuming!

Having cut our teeth on these two small sub-collections, we moved on to cataloguing the archive of the longest-lived of the companies, the East and West India Dock Company (EWIDC)….more on this in my next update!

It looks set to be a very exciting exhibition on a topic that is interesting for many people. Public and media interest is growing exponentially at the moment for the Olympics. Look at this post taken by the Viewtube during high Summer last year and compare it with the pictures taken earlier this month below at the same site.

Not only are large numbers of schools attending the site but also various senior citizens and tourist groups.

Even the media itself are regularly checking up on progress and reporting it nationwide.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to one of the our Olympic tours called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Sunday 12th June 2011 from 2.30pm -4pm and Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Come again next week and we will look at the progress taking place at the Crossrail site that is right in front of the Olympic Stadium.

Peter

In the meantime to whet your appetite here is a picture of one of the canal boats that have been doing such a great job in clearing up the canals in preparation for the Olympics next year.

In case you are wondering just what they have to clear away check out the photo below.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympics site than I recommend that you come along to one of our Olympic tours  called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be doing on Sunday 12th June 2011 from 2.30pm -4pm and Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Don’t forget to check this blog next week when I will be talking about the increasing media interest in the constructions sites in and around the Olympic Park.

Peter

Richard’s photographs now join those taken by Viv, Hazel and Mahesh with a number of images from across this project appearing in a forthcoming edition of The Big Issue. Images will then be selected to be displayed in the London Street Photography exhibition which continues until 3 September at the Museum of London.

The following five images from Richard highlight unguarded snapshots of moments that are in turn curious, busy, unusual, relaxed and, finally, tender.

“Curiosity”

“Rush hour on the bridge”

“Sound Man”

“Lovely day for a walk”

[no caption]

As you can see much of the work has now been completed on the Olympics stadium. Work is now moving on to the surrounding area where the red Mittel Orbit Tower and the adjoining 2012 Olympic Garden will be built.

                If you are curious as to what it looked like a whole year ago then check out below.

And if you enjoyed these pictures then please remember to look at this blog again and you will see how the Aquatic Centre has been changing over the last year in my next update.

 Peter

We quickly wanted to share with you this picture and thought:

Might we be in for a warm Spring and a hot Summer? Lets hope so. The notice below seems to be a good sign of things to come.

This picture was taken at Embankment and Viv has added the following extract from her diary regarding help provided to the homeless in this area of London: “…one of the biggest soup runs in London [is located nearby] and they come out once a week and it’s run by the same family for the last 20 years or more.  The street people call it The Stew. 50 – 200 people come to get fed”.

This image is from East Street Market where,Viv comments in her diary: “Charlie Chaplin used to go there as he lived nearby”.

Viv’s travels took her to many different parts of London as captured in the photographs below:

Viv wanted to capture ” a variety of street life”  and ”really enjoyed the project and would have liked to have done it for longer!”

You can catch up on previous blog updates here from both Hazel and Mahesh.

Having been briefed to capture life as its happens on the street and avoid posed pictures, Hazel has contributed the following ’street photographs’ for possible inclusion in the exhibition. This project finishes at the end of March after our fifth volunteer has submitted their images. It is planned that the chosen images from this project will be included in the exhibition from June.

Hazel’s final image featured on our blog sees an Evening Standard newspaper distributor reflectively lighting up a dark London evening and is accompanied by the following extract from Hazel’s diary:

“The Evening Standard has been part of London street life for 170 years. As commuters pass through one of London’s busiest stations,Waterloo, they pass hard and fast day in day out”…

Look out for our third volunteer Big Issue vendor’s images and thoughts in the coming weeks.

Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), together with Crossrail, hosted a series of site visits for schools and other local residents to view the important archaeological work taking place at our Stepney Green site before construction begins to build a ventilation shaft for the Crossrail tunnels. The aim of these visits was to engage the local community in the history of their local area and to promote the archaeology and the modern development (by Crossrail) currently taking place.

The school visits, which ran between 25th and 28th January, welcomed pupils from six nearby schools. Pupils enjoyed a ‘dig box’ activity with our archaeologists Heather Knight, Sam Pfizenmaier, Tom Hoyle and Victoria Stanfield, where they dug the remains of Roman and medieval structures and worked out what they had found and how to record it. The digging was followed by a site tour led by David Sankey, Senior Archaeologist responsible for the site investigations.

The children were kitted up in Personal Protective Equipment just like archaeologists, and toured the site with Dave, who showed them what the archaeologists had found so far, and explained the significance of Stepney Green in the larger national history. The tour included the remains of a courtyard house built in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Amongst them are the foundations of King John’s Tower, a defended gatehouse of a type built during the Wars of the Roses, which remained standing on site until the 19th century (lending its name to King John Street).

Parliament confiscated the house from the Catholic 1st Marquess of Worcester because he funded Charles I during the Civil War. At least parts of it were occupied by Nonconformist Protestant ministers in the later 17th century, and the remains of a Congregational Church (still standing) descend from their meeting house. By degrees, the main house was converted to a Baptist College, and parts of the college’s chapel still stand.

On the Saturday following the school visits, the site tours were enjoyed by members of the public. St Dunstan’s Church, located close to the site, kindly offered their hall space for an exhibition of finds from the site. Our archaeologist, Victoria, greeted visitors dressed in 17th-century costume, and was there along with other MOLA staff – Elaine Eastbury, Mike Tetreau and Amy Chambers – to answer questions regarding the history of the objects on display.

Public participation is very important for us at MOLA, and opportunities like this give us the chance to share our findings with local communities. Our site visits received great reviews in the Metro, on ITV London and in the East London Advertiser.

- Beliz Tecirli, event organiser

Here Hazel explains her initial thoughts on the project: “when I was told about this project and then given this camera, I thought, no, I have too much clutter in my mind to define what I see and what I want to say. But then what the heck I opened the shutter and these are some of the pictures I took”.

Hazel also provided the captions that accompany these two images.

“Street People”

Hazel has recently given a talk to a group of teenagers and volunteers, they asked her about ‘begging’ and Helen told them: “I don’t use that word because the name you give someone affects how you see them. The ones you call Beggars I call Cup People and the homeless, I call Street People“.

“This is Vauxhall/Oval where a lot of the people have been re-housed. A lot of the people are very poor. You can’t take pictures of children but this is where the children play”

Although not strictly meeting the exact ’street photography’ criteria, the strength of Hazel’s caption for the above image ensured its inclusion in this post and highlights the personal nature of this project.

Hazel admits to initially having problems fitting in taking photographs and selling copies of the magazine as this diary extract from the first two days of February highlights: “…still having trouble working the camera. I’ll sell a few issues and get back to it…next day, I’m clicking away. I hope the camera has accepted them cos I can’t find them”.

 Images from this project will feature in our our upcoming London Street Photography exhibition at the Museum of London.

Catch up on Mahesh’s first blog for this project here.

As a magazine and movement that was born and lives on the streets, The Big Issue has a unique take on life in the capital.

With this in mind, a number of vendors around London have volunteered to take pictures over a two week period representing their view of London’s streets according to the ’street photography’ criteria of un-posed, spontaneous moments that can sometimes provide a brief encounter or momentary juxtaposition.

Vendors will also keep a diary of their experiences and we will share both this and their images here and in upcoming editions of  The Big Issue before selecting one image to form part of the exhibition.

Our first vendor to participate, Mahesh, would like to dedicate his diary and pictures to “the people of this great city, both past and present, who have in the past and continue to make this city vibrant”.

Mahesh’s images from Kensington High Street show an ever-evolving city by capturing construction works in progress:

“Construction workers busily arranging to off-load huge girders and reinforced steel rods on this busy London street”.

 ”More material being unloaded. Reminds me of the disciplined Leaf Cutter Ant’s activities. Excellent deployment of resources”.

“Major construction work in the centre of the West End of London so cleanly, clinically undertaken. Impressive. Sad reminder of the apparent lack of reasonable constructive activity in post-earthquake Haiti”.

Mahesh leaves us with this striking picture which he introduces so eloquently…”an elegant senior citizen relaxing with a hurried smoked cigarette. It is cold.

If you travel across the city by Tube and are anything like me you’ll have found yourself, in recent months, staring across the tracks at the thin, curved screens arriving where before were peeling billboards.  At first very little happened, but it was clear that ‘live’ advertising was about to start on the London Underground.

I found this quite exciting, in a distracting-yet-moving-with-the-times sense.  Of course I expected this excitement to be dampened instantly with advertisements extolling the virtues of life insurance or personal shopping.  Yet it doesn’t have to be that way.  The screen is only a blank canvas, a servant, and a project which has taken that literally is Smile For London.

They have invited film-makers to produce shorts – films, art or animation, to be cycled between advertisements on selected Tube platforms during the rush hour, between the 17th and 28th of January.  Participants include Aardman (the creators of Wallace and Gromit), Anish Kapoor, Laurie Hill, Light Surgeons and Amy Thornley.  Keira Knightley stars in a silent film called Maze made by artist Stuart Pearson Wright.

Last week the Museum of London hosted a celebration of the work of Smile for London, and an awards ceremony for the creative individuals and collectives who have taken part, with a showing of the shorts to be screened.  Until the 28th the Museum will continue to screen the shorts in its digital space by the Galleries of Modern London.

The Museum’s support for Smile for London is a reflection of its constant participation in the curation and also creation of London’s history.  It seems particularly fitting that thistakes place, for a short time on the London Underground, in Victorian tunnels on wartime platforms, obscured by 1980s carriages, seen by passengers carrying Oystercards and flicking through their Blackberrys.  So if you’re on the Tube from now until the 28th look up and Smile for London.

We have had a bit of a break as we have had changes to the project team, so let me introduce you to the hosts who are taking this exhibition forward.

We now have photographs being taken by myself, Peter, Dave and Donald.

Other regular updates will be coming from Rachel and Matt as the exhibition develops.

We are picking up from where we left off on our blog with this photograph from High Summer:

This is part of the Greenway (a walking route through the Olympic site) looking calm and tranquil. Things are a lot different now. We will show you how in future updates as  interest in the site in general has grown massively in the last few months with organised group visits commonplace including I might add ones for visitors to our museum!

 Our next update will take you through from Autumn right into the heart of Winter.

After we have talked you through these changes we will then go onto discussing further the development of our free exhibition which opens in July this year (one year before the Olympics are due to begin).

On Saturday I spoke at an Untold London workshop held at the Museum of London, on the subject of LGBT history and blogging. This was coupled with a tour of the ‘gay’ artifacts in the Museum and a writing session.

LGBT history is full of great stories and many brave individuals right through history who were ready to defy the convention, and often the laws of the day to lead their life. Its interpretation is fraught with difficulty, often due to twentieth century abstract perceptions of what it means to be ‘queer’. What was it like to be of alternative sexuality two hundred or three hundred years ago? Despite my grasp of the stories and facts I don’t know, do I? I don’t know what it’s like now (I managed to announce, to much hilarity, that ‘I am not a gay man’). I have never felt alone or rejected because of my sexuality, and have certainly never been persecuted for it.

So when I was preparing for the workshop, I had no idea what to expect – and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. What a crowd! For a start, our venue in the Clore centre was packed, almost double the attendance expected. Interests ranged from high fashion in court circles to trades unions to concepts of what it means to be trans-gender, genealogy and education.

The lovely Babs gave an introduction, I blathered for a bit about being alternative in Georgian London and then Kate took us on a tour of the gay artifacts of the Museum. What is a gay artifact? Well might you ask. After all, gay people own clocks, shoes and read books just like everyone else. A ‘Pride’ badge is not enough to show the input of gay people into the history of London. So we looked at objects such as the head of Hadrian found near London Bridge. Hadrian was devoted to his lover Antinous, whose death almost broke the emperor. Did you know Antinous’s ‘head’ was the only non-imperial one ever to appear on Roman coinage? As our large group wended its way through a busy Saturday afternoon Museum of London, the sense of fun and enjoyment was clear. I learned things I didn’t know, and not just from Kate – my knowledge of Marie Antoinette’s fashion dictatorship is now considerably increased. As we walked we discussed the difference between the performance of alternative sexuality (Alexander McQueen came up here) and the reality of living an alternative life. Which is which and which deserves to be remembered?

We returned to the Clore for questions, discussion and writing. The challenge was to put something down about the experiences of the day, and the results were quite simply, brilliant. Varied, eloquent and often very funny, they highlighted what had been learned and often passed sharp comment on modern gay life. I would like to thank everyone who came (and Babs and Kate for a splendid day), and to extend an invitation to celebrate LGBT history month in February: email me a blog post please (lucy@georgianlondon.com), up to 500 words on your favourite pre-1950 LGBT Londoner, to be featured on the Georgian London blog. Tell me how you found them and why you admire them. It can be integrity, heroism, social daring or killer style. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

February

Greetings fellow Olympian enthusiasts! When I last left you, the team had just submitted our exhibition proposal to the relevant committee . It’s been some time since that last post (sorry!) so I won’t keep you in suspense much longer. As it turns out, our exhibition proposal was too ambitious, the good news however is that a scaled down exhibition will mean increased emphasis on things like blogs and I am now very important. Also, as we won’t be able to display as many of the fantastic photos in the physical exhibition, I am able to debut the ones I fancy right here, right now. So join me, won’t you, as today we take a journey through this last year.

March

March

I have chosen to use the main stadium as the ‘control’ if you will, in order to better contrast the seasons. The decision to use the stadium was a symbolic one for, as the focus of the ceremony and grandeur, this stadium represents the heart of the…
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. We had a lot of pictures of it, ok?

As you may have guessed, this is the stadium in March. I wasn’t exaggerating when I mentioned a journey through the year. Each month hosts have been braving the elements and documenting the Olympic site. In fact, the banner picture at the beginning is from February.
In addition to a control shot of the stadium, I also wanted to include something a tad arty-er, which brings me to this companion shot. The holey obelisk in the photo is a signpost awaiting signs. Hopefully, after the Olympics, the signs will be removed again and the post buried in order to confuse future archaeologists.

April

June

June

The observant ones among you may have realised we skipped over May. I’m not sure why. Perhaps we were particularly busy. I would encourage you, however, not to dwell on this omission and, instead, enjoy the spring-time stylings nature has brought to the site and the stadium.
Though the construction process is fascinating, I’m always amazed by flora and fauna of the Olympic site. As the area has sat idle since the factories slowly died off, nature has had a head start and the variety of animal, and especially plant life could be an exhibition in and of itself. Of course the dilapidating factories also left behind an equally wide assortment of contamination.
Luckily for the flowers and the Earth in general, a major push is underway to clean the area. Every bit of dirt on the Olympic site is being systematically gathered, rinsed of all pollution, and released back into the wild. Though I’m still a bit unclear on the exact process (cleaning dirt will always strike me as a contradiction in terms) it’s wonderful to know that, whatever else it brings, the Olympics will certainly leave a legacy of a clean and arable Stratford.

July

July

July saw the implementation of what can only be described as a very English campaign protesting the Olympic regeneration. The campaign was waged in the form of brown cardboard signs, as seen in the picture, each sporting a rather adorably genteel and frequently misspelled observation.
In case you can’t quite read it, the one in this photo remarks

The transport links are very usefull(sic) in their own way, but they are just another means of diluting the community.
Other highlights include

I pass it a lot(sic) but I don’t have much day to day contact with it

When you build up an area like this to being urban, like having so much development in it, I think you kind of risk it becoming a bit sort of soulless(sic) and detached from the rest of the world

and my personal favourite

I’m a little bit dubious about the outcome.

Though soft spoken, I suppose only time will reveal if his dubiosity is justified. In the meantime this signage has disappeared as the Olympic site has continued to expand and evolve. Sadly for you, I’ve been taught to always leave an audience wanting more, so you’ll have to wait for the next post to see photos from August through December. These photos are totally worth the wait. Seriously, incredible stuff. You will be astounded and dumbfounded and all sorts of ounded. Afterwards, colours will look brighter. I’ll stop now, I’d hate to oversell you on this. I guess what I’m saying is check back early and often.

Hackney Dust destructor on the Lea near to Lea Bridge (Water colour by Leonard Richmond, 1928)

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

-Kathryn

Donald

Your 2012 Profile of the Week

Donald

Role: Lead photographer/Exhibition designer.

Likes: Travelling, foreign cinema, the feel of wind in his hair

Dislikes: Fakes

Donald is an artiste who is single handedly responsible for drawing up the layout of our exhibition and capturing no less than 27 images of ducks in the month of August. Watch this space for the premiere of his work which captures and quiet corners of the Olympic site in ways both abstract and intimate.

The plague, or the Black Death, is a particularly interesting period in London’s history; it was both short and dramatic, hitting hardest in 1349 to 50. Whilst outbreaks of plague in London would continue throughout the following two centuries (and still occur throughout undeveloped parts of the world), the largest death toll occurred in a very brief period. Families were wiped out, whole neighbourhoods destroyed and the landscape of the medieval city was changed for good.

Chatting to Jelena and the team, one thing became clear, that the architecture of ‘catastrophe cemeteries’ has changed little over hundreds of years. When the need arises to bury many bodies in a very short space of time, multiple burials or ‘pits’ are how it works. The London Plague Pits are remarkable in their construction, forming two long trenches rather than rough holes, indicating some order and forethought. This is, as far as is known, a unique site.

London’s plague pits in East Smithfield are, of their type, the finest and most complete in the world, matched only by a similar Black Death catastrophe cemetery of similar age in Germany. Catastrophe cemeteries are invaluable in providing a ‘living cross-section’ of society. This sounds strange, but as plague is an indiscriminate and ‘unnatural’ killer, the cemetery contains the remains of Londoners from every strata of the city and from tiny babies to healthy youths, all the way to the elderly. Jelena and her team have worked with the remains disinterred from this cemetery to reconstruct a picture of the city in those years. The results are fascinating.

Jelena will be speaking on excavations undertaken at the catastrophe cemetery at East Smithfield (upon which the Royal Mint was subsequently built), at the upcoming Museum of London free Lunchtime Lecture.