I had the great pleasure of working with film makerDee Harding who has made a short film portrait about my art practice and reflections on the urban envrionment in North Kensington. She interviewed me in September 2012 at the former Latymer Project space; this was converted from a Nursery on Freston Road, W10 and is now part of a regeneration scheme for new housing at the Silchester Estate. Dee edited down an hour's conversation about the social and cultural history of the area and how I have interpreted this in drawing sketches and film projects. She has created a fab visual counterpoint to my musings and the film can be viewed on MyStreet. I will also feature it as part of a film programme I'm curating at the Louise Blouin Foundation & Portobello Film Festival during September 2013. 

It was sad, but aesthetically satisfying to arrange the final delivery of milk to the former nursery at Latimer Road, now 154 Freston Road and a temporary art studio space pending regeneration. I had to be up at 5am to intercept the delivery of 13 pints of glass bottled milk. Many thanks to Gillham Industries for donating the milk to the project. 

On Saturday, I collaborated with artists Nadia Berri, Sandra Crisp and Dee Harding in the making of a short film called Day Care. We improvised various site-specific scenes. The highlight was a ritualistic marking of the building with bottles and a playful evocation of lost space.  

Many thanks to B,C and H for their help and I look forward to further collaboration in the post-production edit. 

The film will also include contributions from the following artists who offer reflections on their studio use of the space and early childhood memories of play and creativity: Marcus Harris, David Stockley, Olga Koroleva, Brett Manley and Katie Smith. 

Photos courtesy of Sandra Crisp: 

Took part in a HISTORYtalk event last night with Natalie Marr and Emily Ballard from Latymer Projects. 
I screened two short films called Flood Light (2010) and Home (2012). Also a selection of images culled from my archive research into the Grand Union Canal, Westway, Slum Clearance Programme and Silchester Estate development.  
This was a good opportunity for me to review my practice and to talk about maps created as part of my work. The first map, West London Waterways, was made in 2009 as part of a development bursary for the Cultural Olympiad. This got me noticed by the Arts Officer in RBKC and I was commissioned to stage an arts event as part of InTRANSIT 2010. Flood Light was a participatory film making project getting local residents and Londoners to connect with the inter-related legacy of the Grand Union Canal and Westway (A40). 
Naturally, I made a map and invited people to creatively journey across this landscape. Ten other film makers took up the challenge and produced excellent films. I was able to present this at the Portobello Film Festival alongside my own work. 
As a follow-up project, Home is about the last house demolished for the Westway. It's based on an evocative photograph taken by Mary Miller in the late 1960s. For several months I've been obsessively trying to find out more about this lost house and the home owner who refused to be moved as the wider area was demolished for slum clearance and Westway road building. No luck so far. I have microfiche disorder. 
At this juncture in time, I'm working with Latymer projects editing analogue and digital maps. We want to focus on the area around Bramley Road, Freston Road and the Silchester Estate in W10. This is an area steeped in radical history: 1958 race riot, Westway activism and Frestonia. It is also about to undergo regeneration (again) and our map will hopefully represent issues around community and housing. Check out the excellent map (below) made by Allan Tyrrell. For a full low down, visit the Latymer Mapping project website.   

West London Waterways map, 2009. 
Inspiration for my eco-arts projects based around blue and green spaces in West London. 

Last house demolished for the Westway, late 1960s. 
Photo by Mary Miller. 
© RBKC Local Studies and Archive. 

The American photographer, W. Eugene Smith, spent several years documenting the city of Pittsburgh in the mid 1950s. He shot 20,000 negatives, but failed to synthesis his vision into a coherent, digestible form that could be rendered in any magazine, book or exhibition. Retrospectively, we are left with a beguiling set of images that anatomizes a city: heart, lungs and soul.

I have attempted a similar project albeit on a far humbler scale, talent wise. Over a period of four years, I visited and photographed Glasgow and Edinburgh with the aim of peeling back the fabric of its built environment. This was a pre-digital project, trusting my vision to the time-delay qualities of film. 

Several years went by as I meditated on the project.
I enjoyed looking at Blurb books covering Glasgow and Edinburgh:  
Edinburgh 2009-2011, A Photographic Urban Study by Fotis Milionis
The City Breathes (Tales of Urban Soul Searching) by Neil Boyd
Lines and Curves: A Constructivist View Point by Sefa Ucbas
Edinburgh Police Boxes by Malcolm Irving
In 2012, I finally edited and published a photo book called Glasgow and Edinburgh: Built Environment from Gulf War to Harry Potter, 2003-2007.