During 2010-11, I used to write semi-regularly for Radar, a Birmingham based arts and culture magazine, which sadly closed at the beginning of this year.
The editors' open-minded approach enabled me to write about subjects I had never previously covered, and I've therefore decided to put some of my old articles up on here. The preceding five posts are all reproduced from various issues of the magazine.
I wish Pete and Paul all the best for future projects.
Showing posts with label Radar magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Radar magazine. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 November 2012
The Art of the Possible
This article first appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 12, September 2011. The original version also contained additional photographs by Fiona Cullinan
On the 29th of July a new art exhibition,
Preclusion, opened in Stirchley. This is an unusual enough occurrence in itself
for this part of Birmingham, but the venue makes it more unusual still.
Preclusion is housed in the Whit Marley building - a disused factory taken over
by squatters and now being used as a makeshift Social Centre.
The exhibition is just one of several projects being
undertaken or planned at the Centre, although it is perhaps the most ambitious
so far, with work on display from over twenty artists, some local, others from
further afield.
There is no admission fee, and on the opening night the Whit
Marley’s big wooden shutter is opened to reveal a path formed of two parallel
lines of candles leading through a dark area to the old factory floor, where the
various paintings, photos, illustrations, montages and models are spread along
the walls, and occasionally the floor itself.
There is a conspicuous sense of fun running through many of
the pieces here, such as Felipe Molina’s painting of a brightly coloured,
smiling butterfly in whose patterned wings are hidden several other happy
creatures.
Other works deal with more down-to-earth, local subjects.
Martin Pickard’s photos show a Highgate tower block in the process of being
torn down, its grey outer walls stripped away to reveal the range of different
coloured interiors of the former homes.
The organiser of the exhibition, Harry Starling, has some of
his own pieces on display, including my ten-year-old son’s favourite object in
the room - the Necronograph – a clock in which the numbers are replaced by a
variety of animal skulls painted in silver and gold
Preclusion is due to last for only a week, which seems a
shame given it’s uniqueness, although some of the pieces, such as those by Gintarė
Inokaitytė, will undoubtedly be around for longer as they have been
spray-painted directly onto the walls.
On a second visit to the Social Centre a few days later I
talk to a couple of the activists, Hannah and Josh, in the ‘tea room', a small,
cheerfully redecorated area which was once presumably one of the factory’s
offices.
The tea room is run as an anti-capitalist project – you pay
what you can afford, or what you think it is worth. I paid nothing for my
coffee, not because I had no money or because they had run out of milk, but
because I completely forgot.
Amongst the other activities currently underway at the Whit
Marley building are a guerrilla gardening project, which aims to transform the
factory's disused car park, and a Free
School
Josh offers to teach my son guitar, providing we can come up
with a guitar between us which is small enough for him to comfortably get his
arms around.
The centre holds regular meetings which anyone can come
along to, either with ideas about how the space could be used, or just to see
what is going on.
Hannah tells me that rather than encountering any opposition
from suspicious local residents, many are genuinely pleased that the building
is now being occupied as it had been used in the past by burglars as a means of
gaining access to the backs of local houses.
The squatters hope to be able to remain in the Whit Marley
building for up to twelve months before it is finally demolished. The site is
then expected to have some role in the new Asda store which is controversially
due to open up nearby.
When they eventually have to leave, the group intend to set
up something similar in another empty building elsewhere in the city. There is
certainly no shortage of candidates. Common sense suggests that a great many of
Birmingham 's
disused industrial buildings could be reclaimed as community resources of one
kind or another.
Maybe this is the fundamental point about the Social Centre
- beyond providing living space for the activists, and space for individual
projects, it also provides a sense of possibility - a tangible example of what
can be done with a little imagination and an empty building.
Anyone interested in getting involved can contact the Centre
via their website (birminghamsocialcentre.wordpress.com) or just pop along to
the Whit Marley building itself on Ivy
Road .
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Hidden Histories
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 7, February 2011
Forgotten Stories from the Fight Against Fascism
75 years ago this year, in Spain, a group of right-wing generals, led by Franco, launched an offensive against the democratically elected Republican government. They were aided in this by the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany. The civil war that ensued lasted until 1939 and ended with the defeat of the Republicans, and a period of Fascist dictatorship that lasted until 1978.
One might not imagine that there was any direct connection between this traumatic period in Spanish history and Birmingham. But just a ten minute walk from New Street Station, in a quiet corner of the St Thomas Peace Garden on Bath Row, there is a plaque commemorating the volunteers from the city who joined the International Brigade, an ad hoc army of anti-fascists who converged upon Spain during those years, after Western democracies such as Britain and France refused to intervene, still clinging to the hope that appeasement might prevent a wider European conflict.
It is estimated that over 30,000 volunteers from over fifty countries fought in the Brigade. Of the 2,000 that came from the UK and Ireland over 500 lost their lives.
The inscription on the plaque reads –
‘In honour of the volunteers who left Birmingham to fight in the International Brigade, Spain 1936-1939.
They fought alongside the Spanish people to stop Fascism and save liberty and peace for all.
They went because their open eyes could see no other way.
No pasaran!’
These days the story of the International Brigade has largely slipped from popular consciousness. Anti-fascist history has a habit of doing this.
In the post-war period in Britain, the 43 Group, composed mainly of Jewish ex-servicemen were so successful in disrupting the activities of Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists that they were a significant factor in the BUF’s eventual decline and disappearance.
In the eighties and early nineties, Anti-fascist Action provided such an effective physical opposition to the BNP that the party gave up trying to hold public marches or rallies. (An authorised history of Anti-fascist Action, Beating The Fascists, was published recently. It contains a section detailing the group's activities in the West Midlands and is well worth seeking out.)
But, however successful such groups are, they tend to remain almost unknown outside of left wing circles.
About twenty years ago, some friends and myself were involved in any number of left wing or anarchist projects, usually short-lived and usually centred around Zebedee’s vegetarian cafe in Saltley. A group of us would occasionally go out to leaflet some of the estates around Birmingham where the NF were still active. We would often be joined by one of the café’s regulars, an old guy called Ernie, and sometimes a mate of his, who had both actually been volunteers in the International Brigade. They were both affable, friendly guys who were happy to get involved with whatever was going on, but they never spoke in detail about that part of their lives and, as is the way with young, know-it-all idealists, it never occurred to us to ask.
Over time the café closed, the NF dwindled, and Ernie and his mate disappeared back to wherever they had come from, taking their untold stories with them.
It’s hard not to wonder what advice they might have had for anti-fascists today, when the far-right has arguably been more successful at reinventing itself than the left.
The BNP may still be small, but they have been growing steadily for over a decade, and if you believe their leader Nick Griffin, they are looking forward to the next general election when the credibility of all the mainstream parties is likely to be utterly threadbare.
So if you are ever in town with time on your hands then you could do worse than take a stroll up to the Peace Garden, have a look at the plaque, and remember that old saying about those who don’t know their history…
Forgotten Stories from the Fight Against Fascism
75 years ago this year, in Spain, a group of right-wing generals, led by Franco, launched an offensive against the democratically elected Republican government. They were aided in this by the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany. The civil war that ensued lasted until 1939 and ended with the defeat of the Republicans, and a period of Fascist dictatorship that lasted until 1978.
One might not imagine that there was any direct connection between this traumatic period in Spanish history and Birmingham. But just a ten minute walk from New Street Station, in a quiet corner of the St Thomas Peace Garden on Bath Row, there is a plaque commemorating the volunteers from the city who joined the International Brigade, an ad hoc army of anti-fascists who converged upon Spain during those years, after Western democracies such as Britain and France refused to intervene, still clinging to the hope that appeasement might prevent a wider European conflict.
It is estimated that over 30,000 volunteers from over fifty countries fought in the Brigade. Of the 2,000 that came from the UK and Ireland over 500 lost their lives.
The inscription on the plaque reads –
‘In honour of the volunteers who left Birmingham to fight in the International Brigade, Spain 1936-1939.
They fought alongside the Spanish people to stop Fascism and save liberty and peace for all.
They went because their open eyes could see no other way.
No pasaran!’
These days the story of the International Brigade has largely slipped from popular consciousness. Anti-fascist history has a habit of doing this.
In the post-war period in Britain, the 43 Group, composed mainly of Jewish ex-servicemen were so successful in disrupting the activities of Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists that they were a significant factor in the BUF’s eventual decline and disappearance.
In the eighties and early nineties, Anti-fascist Action provided such an effective physical opposition to the BNP that the party gave up trying to hold public marches or rallies. (An authorised history of Anti-fascist Action, Beating The Fascists, was published recently. It contains a section detailing the group's activities in the West Midlands and is well worth seeking out.)
But, however successful such groups are, they tend to remain almost unknown outside of left wing circles.
About twenty years ago, some friends and myself were involved in any number of left wing or anarchist projects, usually short-lived and usually centred around Zebedee’s vegetarian cafe in Saltley. A group of us would occasionally go out to leaflet some of the estates around Birmingham where the NF were still active. We would often be joined by one of the café’s regulars, an old guy called Ernie, and sometimes a mate of his, who had both actually been volunteers in the International Brigade. They were both affable, friendly guys who were happy to get involved with whatever was going on, but they never spoke in detail about that part of their lives and, as is the way with young, know-it-all idealists, it never occurred to us to ask.
Over time the café closed, the NF dwindled, and Ernie and his mate disappeared back to wherever they had come from, taking their untold stories with them.
It’s hard not to wonder what advice they might have had for anti-fascists today, when the far-right has arguably been more successful at reinventing itself than the left.
The BNP may still be small, but they have been growing steadily for over a decade, and if you believe their leader Nick Griffin, they are looking forward to the next general election when the credibility of all the mainstream parties is likely to be utterly threadbare.
So if you are ever in town with time on your hands then you could do worse than take a stroll up to the Peace Garden, have a look at the plaque, and remember that old saying about those who don’t know their history…
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