This is work I made in response to finding out from this blog post that the building I call home was squatted in the late 70’s - 80’s. I performed a series of acts in response to the small bits of information I could find out about the history of this building and the people who used to live here.
CARING FOR YOUR YUCCA TREES
I cared for these yucca trees by pruning, weeding, fertilising and placing stones in their pots. This was an act of care for the long-neglected trees on the roof terrace which were likely left here by the squatters.
FROM SHELVES TO PLANTERS
I built the planter out of broken shelves. I plan to leave it on the roof terrace alongside the DIY planter the squatters left behind. I planted it with weeds from the yucca’s pots, feeling it would be cruel to not house the displaced plants.
COPS AND SQUATTERS
A game inspired by this quote from the blog post “LI’ve Series 2”:
“The initial tolerance of the local police soon turned … It became quite common on a sunday morning to be woken by the cops breaking their way in, lining everyone up in the yard, searching the building and carting random individuals off for a day or so’s questioning a their carter street HQ. In exchange for a few drinks, an alchoholic mole in the force gave us fair warning of raids and allowed us to feed the gullibe cops with ludicrous false information – we would greet their raids with a carnival atmosphere – everyone dressed as policemen, clowns or irritate them with elaborate games of ‘hide and seek’.”
I turned this into a silly game which I called “cops and squatters”, which was essentially a game of ‘it’, in which the person who is ‘it’ is the cop. The game can be re-started again at any time, simply by yelling ‘Raid!’. Warnings can be given (eg. “I’ve heard that at 5pm there will be a raid”). This happened while in the park, mid-conversation and again during a game of Uno.
MOSH PIT OF 2
Inside of my flat I played some music which was recorded in the punk gig venue downstairs in the 70’s/80’s. We created a two person mosh pit while listening to it. The intention was to recreate the gig that happened here.