All shots this week were taken at the Portobello Summer festival. Its a great community event and after its launch last year, has grown loads already and is fast becoming an unofficial mini carnival warm-up for locals before the hoards descend next month…
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And just to clarify, yesterday’s pic was an April fool’s joke. The photo was real but the planet was not. The shot was taken at the Despacio Sound System at the Roundhouse and they had a bunch of planets made as mobile decorations that hung above the dancefloor as part of their space theme disco and that was one of ’em so there you go. Full ‘fess up!
And to follow on with this spacey theme, here is a photograph of someone who looks like he came from outer space, and might see if I can continue this angle for the whole week…
In reference to this gentleman, I have seen him on one other occasion, years ago and got a shot of him then and he was wearing exactly the same glasses so I can only assume that he never goes out in anything else which makes me believe maybe he is a visitor from beyond…no joke.
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This week’s photographs feature the current Portobello Wall Public Art project by Anastasia Russa. Over the summer I passed by most days and saw it come to life during an endless stream of sunshine. On most days you could see the artist, mostly hidden under her customary sun hat, working on the next portrait.  It was great to see this work of art build and grow as the project progressed. The mural which spans one entire block along Portobello Rd shows the changing eras and inhabitants of the area. The artist is not from the area but spent months talking to locals as to who should be included.
Among those featured are Piers Thompson who runs Portobello Radio, Khadija Saye, an artist who died in the Grenfell fire and Tim Burke, who was a lovely man and a neighbour of mine, who tragically took his own life at the end of last year. These are interspersed with other locals from both past and present.
I am interested in how art on the streets, whether commissioned or not, affects the inhabitants of the area it appears in. Whether we are consciously aware of it, there is an interaction, a connection, a moment of reflection. Even though art is not technically essential for survival, it is still integral and necessary to our lives. Its presence can uplift and create a fleeting instance of calm in the chaos whilst also providing little pockets of  visual pleasure from within the humdrum of the daily backdrop. A lot of art related projects were the first things to be axed by councils when austerity measures slashed their budgets in half as they felt extraneous to living but I think art, of any nature,  is vital and can make the difference between being happy and not.
Last week I showed a lot of local tagging and how little it contributed other than to serve as a force for defacement. Maybe I was a little hard on Boner (sorry ;) but signatures used to accompany a piece of work, not be the piece of work and so, when you see actual art in action, as in this mural, you see how it can light up a street and bring colour to the greyness.
To see the full gallery please click on this link: https://babycakesromero.com/photography/artwall/Â
for more info on this project:Â https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/culture/current-portobello-wall-public-art-project
Have been doing a lot of doorstep documentation recently so going to venture a little further afield..next stop, Paris!
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Question: What is the difference between this shot and all the others this week? Answer: There is no bench. Â It is no more.
The council have recently taken away the bench to stop what they consider undesirables gathering and to prevent them upsetting tourists and poshos. But the truth is the drunks and the street dwellers that congregated they were never a problem and no-one really considered them one. They didn’t really harass anyone other than each other and because the bench was the only designated place you could sit down on Portobello Rd everyone just got on with it and no-one really cared.
Whether you were eating a food takeout from market, supping on a special brew, having a smoke or eating an ice cream this was where everyone congregated. As there was such a divergent mix of people on the bench it always made for an interesting place to hang out and you got to see loads of different characters. Now that this simple piece of outdoor furniture has been removed there is nowhere for those interactions to take place. And along with the local centres and youth clubs that have been closed down over recent years it is yet another community hub destroyed. It feels like its just part of a continued policy to remove every character in the neighbourhood and consequently every bit of character that made this area what it was. And who wins then?
For the drunks, the bench was all they had and now they have nothing. Kensington and Chelsea want to do everything they can to keep this element away and if it means removing the one place they could hang out then so be it. Who cares what these people want or need? Who cares if they have nothing else? Why deal with a problem when you can brush it aside and keep it out of sight?
There was a story recently about the homeless washing themselves in a fountain up by Marble Arch and everyone was outraged and demanding for it to stop but the reason they are doing it there is that they literally have nowhere else to do it. Instead of stopping them maybe you should be providing a place where they can do it? I’m sure they don’t really want to be bathing in public. Would you? They have no choice. But again, why try to solve these people’s problems when you can just remove them from the equation altogether?
This shot was taken the day after they took the bench away and as you can see they are now just lying on the pavement. Is that better? Is that progress? And so yes #bringbackourbench is now another hashtag in search of retribution. I would have gone with #saveourbench but as I have mentioned before, if you ever see ‘save’ following a hashtag you can be pretty sure what comes after it is already doomed. And so I guess all there is to say is RIP bench, we will miss you.
p.s if you are wondering what those pink splodges are on this picture (and you might have also noticed on other shots) they are a sensor glitch from my camera which I have since sent in for repair.
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