Spaces of Hope aims to produce the first sustained history of community-led planning in the UK documenting the diverse and previously hidden ways in which people have come together to care for the future of their local environments and exploring what their efforts mean for contemporary approaches to planning and participatory place-making.
Jade Spencer has written an article entitled The People’s Plan for the Royal Docks for ERA magazine to find “inspiration in the current moment’: ideas for what Mark Fisher called ‘an alternative modernity’, piercing the neoliberal logic of development which risks defining our recent history”.
Kashmir is the centre of both a geopolitical struggle between India and Pakistan and an indigenous independence movement, one of the most militarised areas in the world. Since 1989 more than 80,000 people have been killed and everyday life is marked by the presence of military, curfews, stone-pelting and demonstrations. Children are particularly vulnerable in militarised areas and healing trauma is central for sustainable peace.
FEMINIST ART ACTIVISMS AND ARTIVISMS edited by Katy Deepwell examines different art practices through discussions on identity, gender, power structures and politics and contributes to dialogues between feminist thought and activism in relation to visual arts
“Projects can gain longevity if they are rooted in community and not subject to the overarching constraints of commissions or funding bodies. Through supporting concerns identified by senior citizens in East London, Active Energy has been able to address urgent ecological issues and discover new ways that crucial local knowledge can have an effect both locally and with a constituency far beyond its own borders.” – Dr. Loraine Leeson
cSPACE director Dr. Loraine Leeson has worked with communities through the visual arts for over forty years, creating artworks and initiatives in the public domain.
Loraine Leeson in debate with Stephen Pritchard on artist involvement in community-led visioning
ACTIVE ENERGY: COMMUNITIES COUNTERING CLIMATE CHANGE by Loraine Leeson.
The article outlines the development of the Active Energy project and the organic way in which such projects can gain longevity if they are rooted in community and not subject to the overarching constraints of commissions or funding bodies. Through supporting concerns identified by senior citizens in East London, Active Energy has been able to address urgent ecological issues and discover new ways that crucial local knowledge can have an effect both locally and with a constituency far beyond its own borders.
Loraine and the Geezers contribute to a book edited by Richard Povall of art.earth that asks how can we cross disciplinary boundaries in relation to a question or idea. The book also explores transculturalism: professional disciplines have their own cultures and ways of thinking and working, but even in this globalised world, so do individual nations and ethnic groups. All of these cultural languages play into our work: this book examines how culture, practice and language can intermingle to create new projects that explore real-world questions.
Chapter by Loraine Leeson on The Things That Make You Sick.
When the closure of Bethnal Green Hospital was announced in the late 1970s, its medical staff occupied the site and continued to care for the patients. The chapter describes the making of a video, posters and exhibition for that campaign, followed by visual materials produced with health workers’ unions for the East London Health Project to inform the public on the potential effects of the impending cuts in health services.
Following the installation of a new wheel in the Olympic Park, Active Energy is featured once again in The Environment magazine.
