The London Particular
2004, with David Panos
Essay film exploring the rebirth and undeath of the East End of London through ‘urban regeneration’: a state-subsidised program of gentrification and looting from above of housing, resources, social wealth. We sketched out a history of this process in which dispossession is presented as personal and political emancipation – for a few. In the name of freedom, Thatcher and then Blair presided over a transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest, laying the foundations for the intensified – but by no means unprecedented – austerity and crisis of the last decade.
As such there is a through line from this film to more recent works like One Nation Under A Grave and the Trussanomic debacle of late 2022 that colours In Lovely Blue.
Benedict Seymour and David Panos made The London Particular as part of an eponymous collaborative project researching neoliberal ‘restructuring’ of the city as self-conscious privatisation and social cleansing. The London Particular was a wider-ranging companion piece to The Occupation (2001) and revisited several themes and scenes.
Additional images by Melanie Gilligan and Simeon Tiller.
Screenings include: V22/The Barbican; ICA, London; Tate Modern; Documenta; Principio Potosi/ The Potosi Principle at the Reina Sofia, Madrid (screened at an offsite discussion in Lavapiés); Soho Theatre; the Other Cinema; as well as numerous community discussions, galleries, festivals and events in UK, Spain, Germany, and NYC.
The Special Project ‘Fear Death by Water: The Regeneration Siege in Hackney’ appeared in Mute Magazine (online and print) parallel to the film in 2003.
As such there is a through line from this film to more recent works like One Nation Under A Grave and the Trussanomic debacle of late 2022 that colours In Lovely Blue.
Benedict Seymour and David Panos made The London Particular as part of an eponymous collaborative project researching neoliberal ‘restructuring’ of the city as self-conscious privatisation and social cleansing. The London Particular was a wider-ranging companion piece to The Occupation (2001) and revisited several themes and scenes.
Additional images by Melanie Gilligan and Simeon Tiller.
Screenings include: V22/The Barbican; ICA, London; Tate Modern; Documenta; Principio Potosi/ The Potosi Principle at the Reina Sofia, Madrid (screened at an offsite discussion in Lavapiés); Soho Theatre; the Other Cinema; as well as numerous community discussions, galleries, festivals and events in UK, Spain, Germany, and NYC.
The Special Project ‘Fear Death by Water: The Regeneration Siege in Hackney’ appeared in Mute Magazine (online and print) parallel to the film in 2003.