Q: How did you first come to be involved in the housing crisis issue in the UK? London is in crisis and the eyes of those who are unaffected need to see the crisis in real light, outside of the ceremony of news reportage. I wanted to try to use film more experimentally as a way to add to this real light. University courses were [and still are] being cut until only the pure priciest remain. Social housing is being cut down to it's rubbly knees; communities displaced. These acts are symptoms of the same dangerous austerity of the Conservative Government. The roots of these acts are both racist and classist, as are their effects. They need to be pushed against. A group of us went into a month long occupation at our University at a time when the long stretching housing struggle was reaching a crisis point in London. Occupy UAL were fighting damaging cuts to the last free university course and the inherent racism and classism of these cuts. It needs to be known that it is institutionalized racism that gives birth to these policies. That spring, Goldsmiths, LSE and KCL occupied their London universities in tandem. The battles began to intersect. And many campaigns across London spoke in unison in opposition to Tory rule at a time when elections were mounting and the very real prospect of a five year pure Tory Government was imminent. Politics and reportage are, to a large extent, performance. I have that feeling, at least. They shouldn’t be, but this is what they become. And we often only skirt the periphery of effecting issues. I felt that using the camera – a performative sort of instrument – in an experimental and tangible way, would be a good approach in casting light upon a crisis steeped in a jungle of bias lens based reportage. Q: Can you help inform those who may not be familiar with what it is happening to housing in the UK what this crises entails and why it is so important that people fight back on this issue? It is a complex, complex thing. Last spring, London was in a state of forced transition, politically but also physically. The forced exodus of people from the city, the gentrification of areas and the displacements of culture were more tangible than ever known. It was visible in the building debris mulched into the London ground on city corners and the cranes that rose above the skyline; they were London's limbs thrashing above the tide line of it's own fleshy concrete ocean. With the high tide, high point never lessening. The Conservative Housing Bill will cripple social housing. Landlords, developers and the rich will be the only ones to benefit from the bill. Many face the prospect of interminable privately rented accommodation at extortionate cost, or upon the very real prospect of homelessness. ********************* The proposed legislation: ● Forces local authorities to sell ‘high value’ council properties when they become empty – the biggest council housing sell-off in generations. ● Abolishes new secure lifetime tenancies in council housing, replacing them with 2 – 5 year tenancies. ● Hits social tenants with a combined income of £30,000 (£40,000 in London) or more with a ‘pay to stay’ tax, to bring their rent up to market levels – an up to 400% increase. ● Does nothing to address the housing crisis, and instead replaces obligations to build social housing with Cameron’s unaffordable ‘starter homes’ – requiring an income of £70,000 in London. [INFO From Kill the Housing Bill] The ‘Right to Buy’ scheme, a resurrection of Margaret Thatcher’s achingly destructive housing policy, will allow residents to buy their publicly owned home: depleting housing stocks at a time when their need is swelling to breaking point. The inequality in this country is widening with nets that support those most harshly effected, lessening. Savills, a government advising development agency, released a report called ‘completing london’s streets’, as though this city wasn’t the people that breathe it’s air and live it; as though money is clean and as though money is London. In this report, they propose the demolition of the social homes of over 400,000 Londoners. By regenerating and demolishing social housing and cleansing areas founded by people who have lived in the city for generations, who have not the option to live elsewhere, or by communities that have sunken roots down into London ground and found home here, many cannot afford to, or do not feel comfortable, remaining in a place so altered by ulterior, moneyed motives. It becomes, not the people’s, but an architect’s model made life; a marketer’s plans to net a target made real. Governments and developers have the power to alter the race privilege and class structure of whole cities. They are using it. Q: As an artist, do you find that social justice issues are a central part of the creative process for you? No. Not part of the creative process. That suggests that social struggle is a necessary part of creating and I think that is a dangerous trope to fall into. What I do think however, is that, across society as a whole, creativity can be a powerful force in dissent: whether that voice be born from dissent or in aid of dissent, it is valuable. Dissent is inherently creative. It has to be. This is clear to us from history. Issues of social justice are, and should be, inescapable when lives and communities are being upturned. Whether directly affected or not, we are all inseparable from one another in our ability to effect change. The people of this city do not have a voice in the city that they have built and breathe. And, if they do, it is being quietened. Creativity and creating are about conversations and dialogues and this is a conversation that needs to be had. Good links to look into: Kill the housing bill https://killthehousingbill.wordpress.com/ Architects for social housing https://architectsforsocialhousing.wordpress.com/ Utopia London [film] http://www.utopialondon.com/ The FOURWALLS short film project: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/19/housing-crisis-london-david-lammy-fourwalls-short-film-project Defend council housing http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/ Ella is a maker of films and stories from London, who is now living, studying and creating things between the city and Glasgow. Her film work often focuses upon social issues and experiments with audio and methods of creating narrative without being a forceful teller of tales. Sometimes film is there to cast light instead. The stories are short and rambly.
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