Further details about some of the project work presented here
Further details about some of the project work presented here
Undercroft
The Undercroft is the name given to the area beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank. The original architects in the late sixties left a space made up of concrete ledges, pillars and stairs.
Within a few years a community of skateboarders, street artists and BMXers had colonised it. Now the Undercroft can claim to be the world’s longest continually used skate spot.
The community was not welcomed. Several attempts were made to force them out in the early 90s by creating a hostile environment and reducing the size of the space.
By 2013 a proposal to redevelop the site was put forward that included retail and commercial outlets and a plan to remove the skateboarders to an area under Hungerford Bridge.
Enter the Long Live Southbank (LLSB) campaign, set up to fight the scheme. After eighteen months the campaigners had galvanised local, then mayoral support and forced the redevelopment plan to be abandoned. The LLSB won a crucial legal guarantee for the long-term future of the space.
The LLSB did not stop there. They successfully fundraised to restore sections of the Undercroft that had not been used since 2005. This was completed in 2019.
As a member of the LLSB said: “Cities must be regarded as more than just engines of wealth, they must be viewed as systems that should be shaped to improve human wellbeing.”
XR
The images show Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters from climate change protests over the last four years.
Our current government would have us believe that these protesters are the very definition of quixotic – extremely idealistic, even admirable but ultimately unrealistic, impractical, and foolish.
This is the triumph of Neoliberalism, the ideology that prevents co-ordinated action on climate change. It would have us believe that not only is collective action impractical, but that it is culturally unthinkable.
In March 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the Sixth Assessment Report to guide governments and policy makers over the next crucial years. The next report is due in 2030.
The report offers the hope that collective action at governmental levels can still arrest the devastating effects of climate change. But it is a time bomb and time is running out.
The protesters then, are not quixotic. They are closer to Cassandra figures. But that too is wide of the mark as we are not powerless to prevent the worst-case scenarios.