E8plus Hackney \\Critical report by Luca Domenico Ponticelli

CRITICAL REPORT 1

E8PLUS HACKNEY Luca Domenico Ponticelli MA Nar rative Environments 12-05-14

318

ABSTRACT

E8plus Hackney is a social community project set in Hackney central ( E8). The team of the project is composed of ten emerging designers and artists from different backgrounds. For the last six months, they have volunteered with the local homeless community on Mare Street every saturday. By distributing food and clothes, in association with the charitable organization ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’, they have established personal connections with the local homeless people. This led them to investigate each other stories more in depth by having individual meetings in local amenities on Mare Street throughout the time of the project. Subsequentely, every participating artist developed a piece in collaboration with / inpired by the homeless person story / point of view on society. E8plus Hackney is an interactive, non-linear narrative journey through the multiple faces of Mare Street and its disparate inhabitans. By mapping the different spots where the designers and the homeless people met throughout time and space, we provided the local community with a tool to interact with the content of the project and become part of it. The face of the project is spread across the street along with a qr code, enabling the passersby to scan it and access the specific place-located stories of the partipants that have met there. The narrative plot created will find its happy ending in a local gallery space on the 9th of May. The exhibition collects all the stories of the E8plus Hackney participants and unfolds them in a narrative journey experience of Mare Street from the characters point of view. The visitors will be asked to pin point their home location on the map and leave comments about their relationships with local homeless people. Throughout the night, a silent auction will allow the art pieces to be sold and the proceeds to go to the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’. To help them become a registered charity and improve their action for the local homeless community.

INDEX 2

Abstract

01 -

INTRODUCTION

The business of giving, the art of giving

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Moving to Hackneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

02 -

CONTEXT

Critical theory

Framing narrative

Case studies

Learning outcome from case studies

02 -

METHODOLOGY

Research methods timeline

What is the shape of E8plus?

Prototyping

Constraints and opportunities

Aesthetic grammar

Collaborators

03 -

OUTCOMES

Mark: a homeless ‘hero’

How to measure success?

We b s i t e , s o c i a l m e d i a a n d p r e s s

Bibliog raphy

Appendix: strenghts and weaknesses

INTRODUCTION

THE BUSINESS OF GIVING, THE ART OF GIVING

My original research investigated the mechanism of the monetary world and its impact on the small realities of capital cities. From macro to micro finance, I was driven by the wealth and social inequality I experienced myself as a new Londoner.

“

As a natural process, this came up to be a theoretical digression on the use of money to give. I evaluated the non profit reality finding interesting insights into the multiple existing giving transactions. From the privileged class point of view, with fundraising dinners and events; to the regular middle-class volunteers in local charities. From the ‘tech’ side, the applications for smartphones are reducing the psychological load through micro-donations that are maximizing the number of donors but drastically reducing any personal involvement.

IT S

As a result, what is the relationship between donor and receiver in the giving transaction? Generosity is not solely based on one’s economic status, but instead, includes the individual’s pure intentions of looking out for society’s common good and giving from the heart. So far the givers have different reasons to do it and the receivers different ones to admit and accept to be considered in need.

THE

ARTIS T

WHAL E .

SWIM M ING M O UT H

WITH O P E N,

A B SO R B ING EV ER Y T HING UNT IL WHAT

IT IT

HA S NE E D S

Romare Bearden

How can this dialogue between the two be balanced by meeting halfway? How can they speak the same language, finding a place where the tangible and the intangible would fuse together into a shared and empathic vision of the future?

DONOR - OBJECT - RECEIVER

At this stage, what became clear is that I needed an element that would pyshically or conceptually mediate this relationship. By initially defining it as an object, the steps of my research and analysis became limited to this literal definition. As there wasn’t a specific environment I would have attached my project to yet, I considered what common elements I could find between the characters of my project. I walked around London, at that time I was still living in Bethnal Green, I analized the architecture landscape of the area, the council housing and its incredible inequal coexistence with the stratification of the new middle class. I walked up to Victoria station and I found the homeless grouping together for the cold. They were holding their homes: big ‘Tesco’ trolleys with a character. Home street home? It was interesting to see how an object such as a trolley could hold different meanings across different social classes within the same area. Is there any way the trolley used to travel by the business people in the station could be linked with the one used by the homeless people outside the station?

I S

“THE

IDEA

M O R E TA NT T HE

Damien Hirst

I S

IM PORT HA N

O B JECT”

”

The limits of that mindset was to deviate the project to a more product design approach, leaving out space for a more insightful research into service design, the relationship among different users of the same service. It was a necessary step to understand that the medium I was looking for, between donor and receiver, wasn’t an object but a relationship.

‘MOVING TO HACKNEY’

The turning point in the project came when I moved to Hackney Central. It was October and the air was thick. Winter was coming and I found a homeless person sitting on the floor next to my new flat. Brian, 35. Sometimes I ask my self if it was even a real person. If it wasn’t a product of my imagination, a vision to bring me to what today I developed and the personal growth that went along with it. When we spoke, he brought up intense topics and treated them with natural lightness and optimism. We talked about his dream of coming back to the wilderness of the scottish landscapes, roads he use to ride his bike on. We talked about art, sculpture and the creativity in people. After that time, I haven’t seen him again. What was clear then, is that Art was a prominent topic worth exploring to open a conversation with the local homeless people. Social research and personal experience had then reinforced by a detailed desk research. The resulting facts validated it. Hackney Central is one of the areas with the highest number of homeless in London and Uk (fig.1). On the other hand is in the middle of a re-development that is bringing huge foreign and national investments. The postindustrial landscape of the borough attracted a high number of people from the creative industries. As a result 40% of Hackney residents are from the creative industries

(IPSOS MORI, social research institute, report 2012).

FIG 1 - Areas with the highest peak of homelessness [2013]. (Charity Commission, NCVO/TSRC, 2013 ).

Therefore, the research question became: How can we use art as a medium to link and listen to the needs of two different individuals within the same local area? Settling down to a specific area has helped the project to slowly grow from a fertile soil of experimentation and creativity. The wall where I met Brian (247 Mare Street, fig.2) became the place to promote it to the public. The interior of the same building was going to be the gallery space for me to exhibit some of the work I imagined could have come from the artists living in the area and interested in the homelessness issue. It was not clear yet what system would have allowed them to meet the homeless people, to engage with them. If I was interested to create a connection, this did not mean I could find enough motivation from both side to start a conversation, and eventually, make art together. The idea was to create an online platform that would collect the stories of local artists and their relationship with the homeless people living in their area. This was going to be made partially public by showcasing those stories on the wall at 247 Mare Street: a sort of analogue-digital platform to keep all the participants updated on the status of the project. This had some limitations, there was not enough equal consideration of the two target audience. Also, the connections between them were not strong and systematic. It was missing a stable link that would allow a required regularity. This is when the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’ came across me. From that moment on, the project found the name of E8plus.

FIG 2 - A ‘graphic reproduction’ of the wall at 247 Mare Street used in the project.

CONTEXT CRITICAL THEORY

“If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor.You can keep on with your books and your ideas.You just got to say to yourself, “I’m a free man in here” - he tapped his forehead - “and you’re all right.” –George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London What the author is writing about in his autobiographical book, is that the homeless condition cannot determine the status of a person, as long as an inner condition of balance is kept alive. Orwell’s conclusions are tinted of hope and bringing a criticism in the field, by placing homelessness within the inner rather than the outer self. This has been one of the main starting points for the development of this project: how do these words apply to the homeless people of 2014? The narrative framework of E8plus includes a constant variation of authorships that unfolds within the whole ‘diegesis’. My figure as original ‘intra-diegetic’ author evolved throughout the project. By taking part to volunteering activities, once immersed in the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’ spatial setting, I was deeply acting within the context of the narratee (audience). I became a hidden author within the scenes of his novel. But the notion of authorship crosses the boundaries when my role as the original assembler or producer of a text, has little control on the production of the plot of the project. By giving the artists and the homeless people the power to talk to each other, I become a mere medium with the role to keep every ‘character’ on the right track, in order to make the plot flow as I originally imagined to be. As stated by Michel Foucault in the essay at the Societé Francais de philosophie (1969): ‘A more detailed analysis could discover still more characteristic traits of the author. One is that function it does not refer purely and simply to a real individual, since it can give rise simultaneously to several selves, to several subjects - positions that can be occupied by different classes of individuals.’ The homeless person becomes author himself by giving the artists the content and rough shape of the art piece to develop. The artist takes for himself the experience, and translates it into a tangible object. To what extent he can claim authorship? The essence of the process of E8plus lies in a constant flow of co-authorship, an essential element that seemed to have levelled out the role of the participants by creating an average equal contribution to the final outcome: the exhibition. One of the main aim of E8plus was to question the stereotype of the homeless person by unveiling the real stories of the people from the street and their will to communicate with the society around them. There have been a series of problems connected with it. The project became less linear than expected when we couldn’t achieve the same level of participation from everyone. From the homeless people side, the most difficult people to interact with, were the ones that hardly trusted their closest friends or even themselves: ‘Do you love yourself? Do you trust yourself?’ – Sam, local homeless person talking about other people within the community and their lack of faith in their potentialities.

While from the side of the artists, there has not always been the same boldness or activist- attitude from everyone. For some the project was a process of discovery and they became perhaps more involved than they originally anticipated. For others the context of the project was too harsh and they dropped out after only a few days. Over time, it became clearer that my role was an essential glue to guarantee the development of the project. Sometimes, having an innate attitude for helping others is not enough. One of the challenges to take on with E8plus was to completely immerse myself in the homeless community through volunteering. After 6 months of nights in shelters, food and clothes distribution across Hackney, I de-construced a whole series of assumptions I had before. I believe that by having a clearer final outcome from the beginning, the project would have had a much stronger impact on all the participants, as well as a stronger voice among the larger E8 community. It was only when I started showing them tangible ‘print outs’ of the project that the interest and level of participation increased. Especially when the homeless people saw that I was just showing a ‘collaged’ version of their face, prioritizing their words and vision of life rather than their appearence. Lev Tolstoy has been one of the main inspiration for me to learn how to stand on the other side. By appliyng a ‘Gestaltic approach’, I tried to change my horizon of interpretation by placing the homeless people on a first, prioritized, layer of focus and relegating myself on a secondary layer. This resulted in a personal immersive experience of a reality that has always been far away from my life. ‘To change another man’s outlook on life one must oneself have a better one and live in accord with it’. –Tolstoy Lev (1886)What then must we do? The most profound sense of community starts from physical proximity. The framework for this lies in the our attempt to re-consider the sense of Mare Street and the Hackney Central venues as ‘spaces’, by defining them ‘places’ filled by specific meanings. The homeless people of Hackney Central (E8). Even if mostly re-housed from the council, are people experiencing the loss of notion of space and place. They seek for the freedom given by the uncertainty of the streets. On the other hand, they are lacking of an inner sense of security. Their sense of ‘a place like home’ is blurred by a history of profound distrust towards others. ‘In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place.‘Space’ is more abstract than ‘place’.What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value.’ –Tuan,Yi-Fu. (1977) Space and Place:The Perspective of Experience.

The homeless people I volunteered with, at local shelters, have often defined themselves internally misplaced. While folding their beds, after the night shift, I often wondered why they would rather ‘escape’ from the common hall, than sit, talk and have breakfast with the other guests. Was that night shelter a place or just a space for them? The ‘Saturday Soup kitchen’ is feeding the homeless in the same location since ten years, this practice is unconsciously attempting to re-define the square: from an anonymous space to a weekly socio-gastronomic place. Instead, the contribution of E8plus, lies in the promotion of social links and spontaneous conversations in the time the lunch is served.This way, our project, has slightly turned that square into a centre of meaning. The homeless people possess meaningful stories, by getting to share them in that specific place, they can make those blocks of cement and benches appear to be alive; “to possess life, wrap (so to speak) space around them and become places, centres of values and significance.” –Norberg-Schutls (1971) ‘International Journal Of Architecture and Urban Development By looking at the project from a conceptual ‘bird’s view’ perspective is possible to find different levels of interpretations. The ‘Framing Narrative’ theory includes the whole set of process behind the project and can help to explains them in a more concise and clear manner.

M A R E S T R E E T - FRAMING NARRATIVE A framing narrative contains more embedded narratives, for which it provides a context or setting. It can act as a conceptual yet physical linking device, it “sets the scene” for the embedded narratives, giving us a context in which we can read and interpret the text. – Thesaurus.narrative-environments.com. Mare Street is the ‘Framing Narrative’ of E8plus Hackney.

6 3 5

EMBEDDED NARRATIVES The eight different venues along Mare Street, where the homeless people and the artists met, are ‘Embedded Narratives’. This system applies directly in the E8plus exhibition. Their juxtaposition creates a non-linear narrative journey that the visitor can experience throught the design of the catalogue and the gallery space. FIG 3 - A diagram referencing the application of the ‘Framing Narrative’ theory to the map of Mare Street

E8plus, as experiment of this bigger picture, found its spatial framing in Hackney Central (E8). By focusing on a specific zone, I aimed to create an isolation from the bigger picture of London. By focusing down on a small community, I wanted to show only what was framed within the boundaries of the area. The framing narrative, by setting the scene for the ‘embedded narratives’, gives a context to read and interpret the project and its main elements. Mare street in Hackney Central represents the main contextual and spatial framing narrative. Within it, the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’ acts like the primary embedded narrative, a relevant ‘story within a story’ that claims the main focus of the narrative plot of the project and defines its specific setting. All the other venues connected with the project, unfold as secondary embedded narratives througout Mare Street. By prioritizing the analysis of the E8plus as a live community project, it is important not to forget the intention to communicate the journey of the team throughout the spatial and temporal setting of Hackney Central. Is it therefore crucial to analyse the theoretical framework of the final outcome of the project: E8plus Hackney - A journey through Mare Street. When designing the exhibition, I wanted to find a space that would reflect the essence of the project. I wanted to avoid to close the art pieces in the classic ‘White Cube’, by placing them in an in-between space that could combine the established world of art with the serendipity of the world of the street. ‘ The wall assimilates, the art discharges. Context provides a large part of postmodern art’s content.The white wall’s apparent neutrality is an illusion. It stands for a community with shared ideas and assumptions’. – Brian O’ Doherty (1986) ‘Inside theWhite Cube’. Relational Aesthetics also played an important role in the definition of the space: “The purpose of relational aestethics is to explore art that concerns itself, by creating encounters or moments of sociability within these ‘communication zones’ for non-scripted social interaction.” –Nicolas Bourriaud (2002)‘Relational Aesthetics’. The moment when the art pieces are unveiled to the public is the climax of a storyline where art was one of the main sub-themes. Art aimed to be the vehicle of the relationship between the participants who share the same space and time frame. The final impact of the art produced will depend on the reaction of its context and audience: the local community.

CASE STUDIES

E8plus is an open experimentation on the potentiality of art in social contexts. By analising the following projects, I was able to determine what successful elements I wanted to take on, and which ones were the bias I needed to be aware. Especially when approaching a delicate theme as homelessness.

A THREE COURSE STORY

(A NLAH project) threecoursestory.tumblr.com Every week, North London Action for the Homeless (NLAH) serves a three course vegetarian meal to local homeless. A Three Course Story is a blog sharing these people’s narrative. The projects culminated with an exhibition showing some of those stories illustrated (fig.2) in a cafe in Stoke Newington. Here there are interesting elements but what is missing is the interaction between the homeless people and the person that is producing the illustration. They are not pieces that stem from the relationship. It lacks of the power of the interaction between the two characters. Here there is only one protagonist of the narration: the homeless person, where is the designer? What is the bigger picture of this project? FIG 4- One of the illustrations

DON’T LET THEIR STORIES END ON THE STREET

(A Depaul UK project) streetstories.org.uk

This project consists of a series of impactful murals each one telling a real story of homelessness in the city of London. The project led by Depaul Uk has teamed up with ‘Alternative London’ to arrange the murals and the resulting art has been been placed around various areas in East London. The murals (fig.5)form part of a wider campaign called “Don’t Let Their Stories end on the Streets” and tell the stories of young people who have become homeless or are at risk from becoming homeless.

FIG 5 - One of the murales

The art forms a outside gallery which is in addition to a ‘digital wall’ at the website streetstories.org. Visitors to the website will hear the stories from young people themselves and are able to view time-lapse videos of the artists painting their portraits. The strenghts of this project are the medium used as well as the partnerships created between the client and a really settled collective of street artists. I believe there are still some elements that are lacking. The project hasn’t got a specific location, this way the stories don’t connect with the places where the murales has been developed. In the meantime, there could have been a much more detailed critique and analisis of the causes of the problem in order to provide a future outlook to it. Also, how these artists have connected with the homeless people ? Where is the friction between them that could create the fiction of the art piece? GEORGE THE DOG, JOHN THE ARTIST

(By John Dolan) howardgriffingallery.com

For the past three years John Dolan (fig.7) has sat every day with his dog George on Shoreditch High Street documenting the surrounding architecture by drawing it. His work has been seen and chosen to be exhibited in a local gallery. He was supported in the show by over 35 of the world’s best-known street art and graffiti artists (fig.6). There is a good outlook on the personal story and localism; but in a way it’s missing the root in the local community and the element of cohesion between participants. The project is focused on just one person and its story, it doesn’t show to benefit the whole community but enhances the personalism and the mechanisms of contemporary art commissions. FIG 6 - A re-interpretation of one of John Dolan’s illustrations of the Shoreditch skyline, from the famous London based street artist Stic.

FIG 7 - John Dolan and his inseparable dog George.

LEARNING OUTCOMES FROM CASE STUDIES

Being aware of these other projects that have used art as a medium to talk about homelessness, was a huge eye-opener to me, helping to understand the strength and weaknessess tof E8plus. However, I believe that the format I used has helped to create real connections between the homeless people and the artists involved in the project. I can see this two-way relationship, the will to listen to each othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; stories, element that is reflected in the art piece. As a non-linear process, everyone has given different parts of himself in the project, we have had a variety of layers of involvement according to the strenght of the connection created between the participants. I believe that this is what has to be part of social project, having a structure to be able to break it and let the stories flow as they naturally would do. By including emerging artists and designers in the project, by working under the partnership of a not established charity, E8plus starts from the very bottom of this society. All the people involved have only their will to offer, they are not famous, they have no fundings. They are all here to create opportunities, visibility and see if a small local action can create a bigger impact within the same borough and beyond. Hackney is the heart of the project, is the place where everything started, and everything will end, when this big experiment came to a conclusion, with the final exhibition in May. By reproducing the spatial and temporal journey of the project in the exhibition space, the intention is to broaden the visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective of Mare street. By recognizing familiar places and reading them in connection with the local homeless, we aim to create a shift in their mind that would result in a more cohese community througout time. When listing the weaknesses of the project, I can trace back all the critical points connected with the development of the format of the project as well as the difficulties to communicate it to my audience, to make it real. How to communicate the value of a project without having the tangible elements to prove it? I believe that having a much more settled online presence would have helped to spread the voice of E8plus much better and faster. We tried to establish an online platform that would work together with the original idea of having a wall to promote the project to the local community. When the use of the wall became more limited that we expected, we stopped pushing the creation of an interactive website, to what direction the project would have gone if we that did happen?

METHODOLOGY

This project became E8plus after a long phase of detailed desk research. I was reading about the homelessness and poverty issue but I was not aware of all the roughness that would have expected me on the streets. Six months ago, I started volunteering at the Hackney Winter Shelter. A dormitory for homeless people at the back of Hackney central near the Clapton roundabout. Every saturday morning, between 6am and 9am, I have been cooking breakfast for the local guests. It was located in a hall space at the back of a church. The main responsible for this activity, were a team of young volunteers. I have often seen people coming from a night out directly there to help. The time spent there has helped me to understand the life routine of a homeless person and learn how to build trust. In some cases, some of the ‘guest’ would not want to wake up to their problems, a ‘ghost’ of shame pervaded the hall with frequent moments of incredibly loud silence. A totally different experience was when I started volunteering at the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’ on Mare Street in Hackney Central. I introduced myself along with Sead Baliu, my main collaborator to the project, and from that moment on we have been considered part of the team. We started distributing food, and occasionally clothes, under the shade of the local church, facing Mare Street, between 1 and 3pm. Everytime, before the meal would start, we had a moment to make a wish for the week. We would take our hands and stand in a circle. Listening to the wish of an homeless person is what makes you re-consider the priorities in your life. What wish would you make ? Thesea re the two main places were I was able to get to know my audience and apply my own methodology to understand them better and find possible sparks of dialogue. Investigating the multiple details of the homeless people world and take on more people like me onto this emotional yet personal journey. At the time of the volunteering, The first experiment I did was to write a short description of the life that four homeless people from the ‘Soup Kitchen’shared with me: Cheryl, Dimitri, Mike and John. After this, I asked local young people and students of Central Saint Martins, to draw the face they would imagine from the description given. On the following page there are: Tazmin’s version of Cheryl, Raphael’s verison of Dimitri, Soumya’s version of Mike and Gerrit’s version of John. This experiment on building personas, attempted to see to what extent the figure of the homeless person would be manipulated by pre-assumptions on look. This aimed to find out an angle of understanding of the young local art students and their way of thinking. Are they ‘inside’ or ‘outside the box’ of the stereotypical image of an homeless person? These are the results (fig.8): on the right the person as it is, on the left the person as imagined from the description we gave to the participants to the experiment.

17 HOW

TH EY

IM AGI N E D

THE M

TAZMIN’S

H OW

T H E Y

A RE

C H E R YL

‘I am homeless, inside’. Since my dad got sick I have been dedicated my life to him. My mum was always away, scared of the situation and I was 24 when I stopped living, I left LCC and I couldn’t pay my rent anymore. Eventually when he passed, I was trapped in the same loop. Today I apply for jobs every day but I don’t get accepted because bureaucracy in London sucks. My landlord is chasing me because I didn’t pay the rent for the last 6 months. I will probably go in front of the Court soon. I started now volunteering at the St. Lukes community center. I have hope. D I M I T R I

RAPHAEL’S

‘Hey mate how are doing? Do you want a crisp? Tonight I feel generous!’ I live on the street since 2 years. I enjoy the street, I like the people in Hackney, they are friendly and they like to talk. Mondays like this are good for me; I feel the vibe and people is more open to give when the week starts. I hate Sundays instead; they are slow and long days. I like to drink, I am drunk but I cheer with you mate.You know, I had a place, until my wife committed a murder, she got caught and imprisoned. I don’t want to come back home. I would rather stay on the street for the rest of my days. SO UMYA’S M I KE

Mike is a passionate man who helps out with food distribution events all around Hackney, living within E8 his whole life. He loves to cycle the local parks and write small poetry. Recently re-housed in London fields, his life experience has taught him that love is what builds the strength and bravery of a man. He is a passionate helper and volunteer, but has never officially worked in his life.

G ERRIT’S

J OH N

John is one of the wisest and more connected people in the community. He has lost his way five years ago when falling into alcoholism. Apparently with a university degree, it seems there is always something to learn from him. Especially in the local history and poetry. Spending most of his time in public libraries, free screening events and vernissages, he seems to have fully embraced homelessness with a positive outlook. He always has an ironed shirt and walks the streets holding his big camping backpack.

FIG 8 - A diagram showing the drawings of the design students (left) coming from the description of the homeless person given(middle).On the right

how does the homeless person described really looks like.

RESEARCH METHODS TIMELINE

Art, gentrification and homelessness in Hackney E8

Urban Intervention at the wall Interview locals, shop owners, charity experts and design students

No site

slow establishment of different sites

247 Mare street wall.

S ITE D ESK S O CIAL ACTIO N M ATERIAL

July - October 2013 WRITI N G

THE

B RI E F

October - November 2013 I N I T I AL

R E S E AR C H

November 2013 - March 2014 AN ALY S I S

D E S I G N

Fusing complementary phases

SI TE

- Observation - Flow of people - Target audience - Materiality - Color and texture -Visibility - Accessibility

D E S K

- Libraries and Archives - Case studies - Internet - Newspaper articles - Lectures and seminars - Statistics institutes

PROMOT

Street art Intervention on Mare Street

facilitate connection between the local residents, the artists and the homeless people at the Saturday Soup Kitchen Paper, plaster, wood and fabric for the interventions

The Hackney Shop - exhibition

Making of wood frames

March - April 2014

T IO N

A ND

RE-DEF INITION

SOC IAL

- Questionnaires to locals - Formal interview (video) - Participatory observation - Drawing session - Informal interview -Volunteering (shelter and soup kitchen)

May 2014 F I N AL

E X H I BI T I ON

AC T I ON

- Three urban interventions - Four street art interventions - Testing and prototyping reactions - promotion with masks - Informal interview -Volunteering (shelter and soup kitchen) - Final exhibition

M AT E R I AL

- Experimentation - Plaster, paint, wire, fabric, paper, acrylic and wood. -Wood frames - Use of materiality to express and re-interpret a concept.

RESEARCH METHODS SNAPSHOTS

FIG 9 - A series of images showing the stages of my methodology. The Hackney Winter Shelter(A), the map of the shelters in E8 shown by Mike - a local homeless (B), the first street art ‘paste-up’(C),a moment of empathy towards a homeless (D), preparing the urban interventions (E,F,G), pizza and brainstorming with the team (H), the first promotional posters(I), Dimitri begging next to a mural (J), the first cement box (K,L), The plaster made for Freya’s intervention(M), the first gallery space we met(N), The WIPshow in CSM(O), Mike and Sead smoking together(P), The first visit at the ‘Hackney Shop’(Q), Changing the style of the website(R), Brainstorming in the MA studio with the collaborators(S), the first composition of Alice/Sherief’s and Sebastian collage on the website.(T).

WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF E8PLUS? Since October 2013, I have been writing a weekly log to determine the multiple elements playing a role in the development of E8plus. I categorized this stages onto a series of diagrams measuring them on a scale of one to ten. This is an attempt to visualize the evolution of my project and it’s based on the ‘Uffe Elbaek’ public opinion barometer. This system has been created by the former Danish prime minister to visually identifying the public trend and opinions. – Elbaek U. (2013) ‘Leadership on the Edge’. The categories are: NARRATIVE, RESEARCH, METHOD and MOOD. The sum of the axis should always be ten. The following diagram (fig.10) shows the categories on the axis, while the one below (fig.11) shows how a shape is created by connecting the level of the different values.

FIG 10.

FIG 11.

THE RESULTING SHAPES FROM THE APPLICATION OF THE MODEL:

WEEK 1 Narrative Defined 4 Undefined 6 Research Theory 8 Practice 2 Method Structured 8 Improvised 2 Mood Positive 3 Negative 7

WEEK 3 Narrative Defined 2 Undefined 8 Research Theory 7 Practice 3 Method Structured 8 Improvised 2 Mood Positive 4 Negative 6

WEEK 5 Narrative Defined 5 Undefined 5 Research Theory 1 Practice 9 Method Structured 1 Improvised 9 Mood Positive 9 Negative 1

WEEK 6 Narrative Defined 4 Undefined 6 Research Theory 6 Practice 4 Method Structured 5 Improvised 5 Mood Positive 6 Negative 4

WEEK 9 Narrative Defined 2 Undefined 8 Research Theory 7 Practice 3 Method Structured 3 Improvised 7 Mood Positive 2 Negative 8

WEEK 11-14 Narrative Defined 4 Undefined 6 Research Theory 6 Practice 4 Method Structured 8 Improvised 2 Mood Positive 4 Negative 6

WEEK 16-17 Narrative Defined 6 Undefined 4 Research Theory 1 Practice 9 Method Structured 8 Improvised 2 Mood Positive 6 Negative 4

WEEK 18-19 Narrative Defined 7 Undefined 3 Research Theory 1 Practice 9 Method Structured 8 Improvised 2 Mood Positive 8 Negative 2

WEEK 20-21 Narrative Defined 9 Undefined 1 Research Theory 1 Practice 9 Method Structured 7 Improvised 3 Mood Positive 7 Negative 3

WEEK 22-27 Narrative Defined 9 Undefined 1 Research Theory 3 Practice 7 Method Structured 9 Improvised 1 Mood Positive 9 Negative 1

WHAT DO THEY TELL US?

The first six weeks of the project have been a rollercoaster of topics: from a wider picture of wealth and social inequality to the controversial increasing number of childhood poverty in London. This led me to a more detailed analysis of the causes behind these facts, identifying some interesting causes in the rapid gentrification of the re-developing areas of the city. As a result, I came across the issue of homelessness in East London.

WEEK 1-5

At the end of the 6th week, I have found a more stable approach, I left the desk and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wore the hat of the antropologistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: the participatory observation of the homeless community was going to start. WEEK 6

By the time I needed to define the project for the work in progress show (9th week), I started to take some more risks, the reactions of my target groups and the neighbourood were driving the narrative to the next level: I experimented more in the engagement of the homeless people and started making urban interventions in the area. WEEK 9

The Saturday Soup Kitchen embraced completely the cause, more artists decided to join the project and the homeless people among the community started to trust more people of our team. The Narrative of the project found a stable plot that helped it to re-connect the dots of the previous phases. WEEK 11-21 WEEK 22-27 / THE FINAL SHAPE 9

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We are at the final stages of the project, the exhibition has come and it is time to look backwards at its limits and successes. This final shapes represent the achievement of a position of balance for E8plus. So far this is what I aim to achieve when approaching future design projects similar to this one: The narrative is defined, but still has some space for further evolution and changes that could benefit it. The research has been enriched by a consistent body of theory that allows the project to concentrate on the practical elements, such as communicating to the audience with assertivity and acting with consistency. The method is established but still holds an element of surprise, this process has been facilitated by the characteristic of the participants (homeless people). Last but not least, there is a good mood within the team and will to look at the future with hope and smile.

PROTOTYPING

Some of the art pieces developed by the participants to the project, have been ‘re-drawn’ by me through a series of interventions at the wall at 247 Mare Street between January and March 2014. Aiming to promote the specific artworks and ultimately the final exhibition, These are attempts to create another layer of interpretatiom to the concept developed between the artist and the homeless person. The spatial, visual and conceptual features of the work is exhibited on the whole wall surface in a different shape. This creates a ‘look&feel’ of the piece, without showing it. This way the ultimate piece will be only unveiled at the final exhibition. The resulting plaster from the making of Freya-Mark art piece has been re-designed, to become an aggressive element in the 247 Mare Street ‘embedded narrative’. With this piece (fig.14a) I wanted to represent the unknown and undefined way Mark exposes himself to the world. The elements created are creatures that slowly grow in his mind within his mental issue, keeping him away from a clearer vision of life and himself. From candid white barbie heads (fig.12) to black deformed parassites that claim the same visibility as the original art piece. It is the anthem of a canonic vision of beauty within a urban context. The manipulation of plaster, clay and paint for Freya’s piece (Fig.13), helped me to determine what was going to be the aestethic direction of the final exhibition. Also, that particular installation, helped me to understand what reaction it would have had on the general public of Hackney since we asked them to interact with it while taking a promotional picture with the face of the project. The interventions (fig.14b) have taught me to communicate to people in the most catchy and fast possible way. Drive their interest to the project and its system. We realized that the general passersby were interested in art, with a minor percentage that didn’t understand what we were doing. We received some positive feedback so far but they are all hard to measure. How do we measure the success of a promotional campaign in the street? We needed have a method to track the people interested to join us at the exhibition. We took a picture of them and then send it over to their email address along with an official invitation to the official opening. The type and amount of people coming will proove the efficacy of our actions.

FIG 12 - Freya’s piece based on her encounter with Mark and his story.

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FIG 13 - My interpretation of her encounter with Mark and his story.

FIG 14 A- Detail of the installation.

FIG 14 B- Local residents posing next to the intervention to promote the exhibition.

STREET ART INTERVENTIONS

As part of the journey of E8plus on Mare Street, a series of interventions have been made to mark the spots where the meetings between designers and homeless people happened. The specific QR code below (fig. 15) has been placed on the corner of the Picturehouse.When local residents scan it with their phones, they are re-directed to the website where the story of the connection between Mark and Freya is told. The use of street art as one main medium lies in the recent history of the local area. Hackney has become a preferred destinationfor national and international street artists. This has brought a whole new type of tourist to the area. People seeking for inspiration from the old brick walls. SCAN ME !

FIG 15 - Freya’s and Mark QRcode B

FIG 16 - JoLi and Monica’s QRcode

and a series of other interventions: at the ‘Hackney Picturehouse’(A), ‘Hackney Empire’(B), and Tesco’s car park (C).

CONSTRAINTS & OPPORTUNITIES

The main constraints have been connected with privacy and trust. Throughout the project, one of my main concern was to lack of sensibility towards the homeless people. I have been trying to define my behaviour according to the delicate and instable personalities I was dealing with. Homelessness takes people out of society from many different perspectives. They loose control on the time of their life and forget many social behaviour rules. Because of that, I often found myself acting as a moderator within the homeless community and between them and the local residents. On the other hand, I have often been surprised by how seriously they took my words. Sometimes I found people coming to the individual meetings in a completely different look and outfit. Wearing the clothes of a new character in the story of the project, all tied up in new jackets taken from the charity shops to give themselves more tone before starting describing their life to me. The privacy issue is what created this aura of mistery around E8plus for the people outside the project. It was hard to ask the participants to take pictures of them. Documenting a project which involves people with dark pasts and delicate presents makes photography a potential danger for them. It can easily be perceived as an exploitation of their condition. The people who didn’t want to hide from the camera were eventually the same one driving all the other members of the community, out of a scheme of fear, into a dimension of openess and trust. A

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PR O B L E M S . Yvonne Aimee – founder of the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen in conversation with me.

YO U

When I showed Toni - local homeless person- that his face was on the local newspaper, he was so excited by the idea, that went around the community showing them the article, proud of being part of this project. This has been one of the best emotional rewards for me. Although, there was one episode that happened at the winter shelter that got me thinking. I once asked to one of the guys you used to be more confident talking with if he would mind being filmed in the shelter for the project. His response was that he wanted to be paid for it, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. That was one of the moments when I realized that this wasn’t the only episode of egoism among the community. It happens often to see people being rude to the ones taking care of them. This was a huge turning point for my project, one of those which eventually made the difference and unlocked it. Since the beginning, I have been repeating myself to weight my words everytime I had a conversation with one of the homeless people. This wasn’t always necessary, and the lesson came from Yvonne Aimee, founder of the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’. ‘Be strong, be harsh, if this can help, they will see if you really care or not, manners don’t help when you deal with primary life problems’. Changing tack, another constraint that needed to be overcomed was the financial side of the project. I was making plans to develop further some elements both from the urban interventions side and the materials to give to the participants to develop the art pieces. I wasn’t able to give enough economic support to them and this has limited the range of my practice. Everything changed when, in March 2014 I was able to apply and win a university funding from UAL called ‘More than Profit award’. They fully believed in the cause of E8plus and supported me to step the project further.

AESTHETIC GRAMMAR

The visual language of the project originally came from the constraints I encountered on the way. I thought that by only showing half of the face of both artist and homeless person I would had kept them equal and complementary to each other as the art piece could not exist without one of them. Also, many homeless people weren’t willing to have their full face exposed. This directed the aesthetic of the project pretty soon to collage. Collage is also a quite contemporary language in art and design. It works on different medias and communicates without literally telling what the content shown is. The artists who have inspired me the most in the development of my visual grammar are: HANNAH HOCH

FIG 17- ‘Photomontage’, 1946

Was a German Dada artist aknowledged as one of the pioneers of photomontage. Her anticompositional Dada ideal unfolds as a complex cross-section of cogwheels, text and composite human figures (fig.17). Unusually large, the photomontage heralds social confusion while highlighting the polarities of Weimerera politics, government radicals, oppositionists and Communists.The aesthetics and social meaning of her art highlight the vision of collage as a medium inspired by political ideals as well as directed to them.

PABLO DELGADO Is a Mexican street artist. He is renowned for his miniature paste up scenes. He creates detailed narrative scenes, meticulously depicting hosts of people, animals and objects in minutia around London.His style is also peculiarly known for the distinctive black shadows that he casts on the pavement in black paint (fig.18).This gives his pieces a lifelike quality and make them pop off the wall. The scenes themselves appear fantastical, chaotic and seemingly unrelated at first. However, upon closer inspection and examination each contain their own narratives and stories.

FIG 18 - ‘Untitled’, 2013

SAUL BASS

FIG 19- ‘The Shining’, 1980

Was an American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. His work can be classified in between Constructivism and Futurism; his distinctive typography and minimalistic style has completely revolutionized the way film titles were perceived.

E8PLUS VISUAL IDENTITY The aesthetic grammar of the project has evolved through time(fig.20). It started as a minimalistic logo to become more illustrative. I attempted to bring the faces of Hackney in the main identity without really showing them. The choice of the use of the two half ‘un-featured’ faces is due to the constraints and needs of E8plus. They represent the face of an artist (top) and a homeless person (bottom) participating to the project, joined together into a whole new identity, by the plus (+) sign. The meaning behind the plus sign in the logo as well as in the name of the project is connected with the aim to add more to the community and ultimately create cohesion/addition to the existing situation. The other elements of the identity are the characters created to represent the different people involved in the project. They mainly appear in the storyboard to describe the experience of the local residents with E8plus and its development through Mare Street. 2013

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C:0 M:88 Y:51 K:O BRANDON FIG 20- The visual evolution of the logo

313 FIG 21- Some frames of the storyboard showing the visitor experience of the exhibition: ‘A journey through Mare Street’.

COLL ABORATORS

When I list my collaborators I always have to make a distinction between all the people that gravitated around the project from October 2013 until now, and the ones that have shown the same commitment through time. E8plus is a community project culminating into a curatorial project when dealing with the art produced and the resulting final exhibition. My main collaborator is Sead Baliu. He is a Master student in Digital Media and has collaborated on the project from the beginning. His role is to curate the online side of the project, the coding and the social media side. He is also involved in the video making part and he is occasionally a photographer. By working together I realized that having someone you can rely on, drastically reduces the overload due to the creative direction of the project. He takes part of the main decisions, gives advices from his professional point of view and has helped in all the volunteering activities as well as in the making of the urban interventions. He also has a direct relationship with all the artists participating to the project. When the content of their work is dealing with videomaking, he is the one documenting it for E8plus. He is constantly in conversation with another web designer- Gigi Hung- from the first year of ‘Narrative Environments’. They have planned an interactive website for the future to see the potential of the project to be given to charities or university as a format. Another role required in the project was the one covered by Soumya Basnet and her model making skills. I have been stitting next to her and made with her the model of the wall at 247 Mare Street and the exhibition space. Her maker mind has also been helpful to bring me out of planning and looking at things with a more pragmatic point of view. It is also essential to recognize that without the professional collaboration of all the participants to the project, I wouldn’t have been able to bring E8plus to life. Among the homeless people: Mark, with his incredible interest to help the project grow, John, passionate helper and incredible storyteller, Sebastian, who introduced us to many people among the community; Monica, Kevin and Lisa. On the other hand, the artists participating have also given their availability to give their time and commitment beyond the schedule pre-fixed by us. Audrey with her constant support and dedication on every different activity: from the making of the installations to the cement box display and the social research. Alice and Sherief, to have spread the voice of the homeless people of Hackney and the project to their group of collegues. This is what allowed us to meet Carl, an architect that would have then matched with Kevin, local homeless person sharing his same Kenyan roots. By completely basing the project on collaboration, I attempted to identify a possible conversation on the missing links among the different members of the community of Hackney E8. Building a small community around the project was the only way to experiment and identify the value of collaboration as a tool to achieve a wider community cohesion between E8 and its disparate inhabitans.

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T HO SE

WHO

LEA R NED

CO LL A B O R ATE A ND

IM PR OV ISE

M O ST

EFFEC TIV E LY

HAVE

PREVAI L E D

Charles Darwin (1859) ‘On the origin of species’

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COLL ABORATION DIAGRAM

Farida Al Husseini Bethany Sheperd

Sead Baliu CO N C E P T

R E S E A R C H

D E V E LO PM E N T

Sarah - shop owner at Broadway Market

Audrey Mifsud

Hackney Winter Shelter

PA R T I C I PA N T S

Luisa Seipp

Manasi Pophale

Kaffe Matthews

Kelsey Freeman

P R O M OT I O N

Soumya Basnet

COL L ABORATORS

Bruce Gilchrist

Gigi Hung /

The Pavement magazine

E X EC U T I O N

The Voice newspaper

T E A M

G A L L E R I E S

Munchie Williams

London College of Fashion

Benjamin Mallek

EX T E R N A L

Marion Robinson

Val Stevenson

Hannah, Conor, Shnooks and Jess Coordinators at the HackneyWinter Shelter

E8 P LU S

Hackney Archives

S I T E S

ACC E S S

I N S T I T U T I ON

Squat House 180 Mare Street

Saturday Soup Kitchen

Central Saint Martins

Yvonne Aimee

Ascanio Costagiuti

Hackney Gazzette Higher Education Funding Council for England

OUTCOMES

MARK: A HOMELESS ‘HERO’.

Measuring the outcomes of this project is not an easy process. I started with a vision: to investigate and question a stereotype I was not completely conscious about. Why homelessness was so widely negative perceived? How could the opinions and real stories of these people help to re-define it? This is why, I believe that by looking at Mark as a representative example of the local homeless community of E8, would help to understand to what extent this project has answered these questions. Throughout the time of the project, no one has shown more interest and involvement than Mark. He is a local homeless person - he defines himself a ‘hustler’- with a sense of instable confidence. By confidentially sharing us his vision of the past, present and future of Hackney, his aim was to somehow collect the opinions of the community around him and report them to us. He became like the hero stepping out of the group and ‘taking on’ the E8plus challenge. From the very first time, he introduced the topic of trust. As an ‘invisible barrier’, he hardly opened himself completely to other people, but he knew how to keep his friendships, he had a strong amd persuasive tone of voice: he knew how to make people say ‘yes’. ‘ If I wasn’t interested, I wasn’t going to spend my time meeting you and talking to you..I am not gonna let you down.’ Among the instable context of the homeless community, how can a statement like this cannot taken seriously? One time he confessed he was starting to paint. Using acrylic drops on carboard to create shapes. These seemed to be a great step further for his mental balance. He was considering this new self expression, and we felt to have somehow contributed to it. He has defended us when other people didn’t trust us, he spreaded the word of the project to friends outside the local group, but when it came to committ to something, he wasn’t able to. He didn’t show up to most of the individual meetings we planned and, when it came to make art, he just wasn’t able to go to the next step, show it to the world. The evolution of E8plus has naturally transformed the initial idea of making art together, to the idea of conceptualize it, planning it and leave the artists to the final execution. But Mark really wanted to paint something about his ‘match’ Freya, therefore we started having some expectations towards him. Everytime we would meet him, he would give us a different version of his life, therefore there was no way we could know if he was making art. I bought paint for him and he felt he needed to give me back the trust I gave him: ‘You believe in me, I am not going to let you down’.

FIG 22 – Mark in these ‘graphic’ image since he still

doesn’t want to be portraited in pictures.

Time by time, phone call after phone call, it became clear that he couldn’t be open with me. He had been affected by the harshness of a wild, dangerous and instable life. This has generated a profound distrust and suspect towards society, I could imagine how those psychological defensive mechanism were leading him to an inability to adopt a responsible behaviour. He struggled to follow through his words. These considerations came out of a long period of volunteering, I wanted to demolish the stereotype and there are some elements I was apparently forced to confirm. When Mark decided he wasn’t able to give me his word anymore, a big part of the project fell apart. Our hero, the man of the promises, the long talks; the outpost of the community, the homeless/artist (with an ironic Basquiat look) who brought us into his imaginary world of art and street life, was up to fall from his status. As direct outcome of the analysis of Mark’s experience with the project, I attempted to visualize his journey through the time of E8plus by using the narrative tool of Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’. This structure can be another layer of interpretation of the positive aspects and limits of working with him, resulting in a series of steps that re-call the quest of the ‘Hero’ through the difficulties of entering a new world and embracing the changes that this new ‘metaphorical or often physical transition brings with it’. – Campbell J. (1949) The hero with a thousands faces.

THE HOMELESS HERO’S JOURNEY Mark’s half quest through the project

CA L L

ADVE N T U R E

The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. A polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions. October 2013, we meet Mark for the first time at the Soup Kitchen, we ask him if he wants to join E8plus. R E F U S AL

T H E

Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change. After an initial interest, we ask him to meet again individually. The first time, he refused, the second time he didn’t show up.

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M E N TOR

The hero comes across an experienced figure who gives him training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. The hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.Yvonne Aimee from the Soup Kitchen explains our intentions to him, the aim of the project and the way to trust us and the idea we have for the community. He claims to have started painting inspired by her words.

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T H R E S H OLD

At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values. He comes to the first individual meeting with his ‘match’ Freya, crossing a consistent conceptual threshold: meeting and getting to know a stranger from a completely different world. T E S T,

ALLI E S ,

E N E M I E S

The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World. He gets to know Freya better and brings a friend with him, to reinforce the group of people supporting him. He trusts our small group of volunteers but no one from outside it. He meets Benjamin- photographer of the project, freaking out about his camera. His paranoid syndrome finds him not ready to carry on with the adventure. He will never complete the project and fully committ to it. A PPROAC H

The hero and new found allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world. Mark, not ready for allies, refuses to committ completely to the project: The chain of the hero’s journey is broken FIG 23- My application of the Hero’s journey to Mark- local homeless person.

HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS?

One way to measure the success of this project is through the words of Freya, one the participating artist after the collaboration with Mark: ‘Speaking to Mark made me realise many things about myself, and made me really consider my place in the world [...] the challenge I now face is to find a way to change my position towards the homeless people of my community’.

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D O N’T

A R T, J O B

I also have found out that the local residents weren’t the only ones creating barriers against the homeless community. Homeless people have opinions on them too and often a judgemental behaviour which can easily increase the psychological distance between them. From this perspective, I have also came across homeless people that wouldn’t have been willing to create any connection with the other inhabitans. The participants to the project have had a slow process of understanding the life and behaviour of the local emerging artists. This is because they could see them interested in taking a step into the community and exit their ‘comfort zone’. ‘I believe in what you are doing, every week with us [..] it is nice to meet new people and get to talk to each other.’ –Toni, local homeless person at the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’. Although, not all the homeless people we volunteered with were interested in the project or willing to understand what our intentions were. ‘We don’t need art, we need a job’ –Sandra, local homeless person in conversation with me.

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Sandra, local homeless person in conversation with me.

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Toni, local homeless person at the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’.

”

In E8plus, the artworks are essentially the main tangible outcome. The decision to create them with equal collaboration wasn’t always possible because of several constraints. Among these: time schedules for the meetings, availability of participants from both sides and committment. This is why, the only moment to co-create became the individual encounter that the artists and the homeless people had in the specific locations across Mare Street. I was always present to their meetings, often sitting by myself and observing them without being part of the conversation. I have had reasons to believe that, at least in that specific time/space framed moment, they built a strong and true connection with each other. “When I first met Kevin in Hackney we sat down and had a meal together. Kevin was very shy and soft spoken, as we ate I could feel he was not entirely comfortable with being in a crowd. His presence felt temporal almost always fleeting as if wishing not to be there. When I asked him what it felt like to be homeless in London, he answered:‘Being homeless in London is like being a ghost, you are there but no one really sees you.’” –Carl meeting Kevin at the Oslo bar and restaurant in Hackney Central. Carl developed a really strong connection with Kevin, they conceptualized the art piece that afterwards will be named ‘T8’. They kept in contact and talked to each other for the next month after the first encounter. After that time, eventually no one could get ahold of Kevin anymore. We hope that this experience had guided him to a more empathic approach to other people in society as much as it did for Carl.

Mark’s story, in the timeframe I came across him, seems to represents some common traits of the E8 homeless community. But, meeting many people since the project started eight months ago, has helped me to make my own definitions and not to make judgments or classifications of status. Today, I see homelessness as a life changing ‘virus’ grabbing people on a rough journey and keeping them in a dark loop. It seems to bring the loss of sense of time and space, a blurry vision of the future: it keeps the person in a constant ‘Purgatory’ of instability. My original research question stated:‘Can art be a catalyst to create interaction between emerging artist and homeless people of E8?’ I would define art as one useful tool to create conversations around a series of different topics between the two groups of people involved in the project. Art itself has no judgment because by its nature, democratizes opinions and status. So far, together with the Saturday Soup Kitchen (fig.25), we were be able to reinforce the community participation around the homeless people of E8 by constantly bringing new people to the square we weekly met. This created a buzz around the area that brought several local residents to ask for involvement, creating an interest to contribute that in some cases resulted in food or volunteering contributions. Art played efficiently the role of a catalyst, because combined with the dedication and passion of the group of participants, the people that exhibited their final work at the gallery space in May. Although, today there seems to be more awareness of the possibilities opened by the presence of E8plus on Mare Street. As a direct testimony of some of the people participating to the project, walking down Mare Street is now a different experience. Some local homeless people often talk to them, showing interest to start a conversation about their day and how some of the insights coming from previous conversations, had been useful to their daily research of balance. E8plus attempted to turn that square, a regular space, into a place, that one day a week would be enriched by a shared sense of community. Since we collaborated with the organization, we have been witnesses of an increasing curiosity from the locals towards our activity in the square. It became a sort of hub for the new Hackney Central. A few weeks ago, when Spring came, a small truck came to the square aiming to sell coffee (fig.26a); and a van selling barbeque chicken (fig.26b) moved next to the soup kitchen. This was an incredible opportunity for the rest of the community to share the same space with them (fig.27) Some of them started talking to each other, others didn’t. There was a profund sense of curiosity from the homeless people side, because they felt that a commercial activity, next to the food distribution, was definitively ironic and slighlty unfair. ‘This is our square, you donate us food every week, these people are trying to make money by using the place we all together contributed to create.’– Mark, homeless person talking to Yvonne Aimee. This shows that there is a perception of distance and social status. Our contribution to it with the Saturday Soup Kitchen, consisted in acting like a middle agent to reduce this distance and make them talk to each other. The conversations were mostly around daily life and art, but evolved into a wider conversation on the community and its rapid changes in the last years, trying to share opinions on what the E8 of the future can improve by working together for it.

FIG 24- Some close ups of the promotional flyers distributed by the E8plus team for the ‘Saturday Soup Kitchen’. These were part of the new visual identity I designed for them to gain more visibility within the area and beyond.

FIG 25 -(A)(B)Two new activities have opened in the square next to the SSK and E8plus.

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FIG 25 – Homeless people at St.John’s square.

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FIG 27 – Local ‘hipsters’ and homeless people interacting at St.John’s square.

WEBSITE,SOCIAL MEDIA AND PRESS

By the time the date of the exhibition and the artworks were finished, we have been promoting the project across various social media. The Instagram page (fig.28) has reached 64 followers in the first 3 days after the launch. On the other hand, on Facebook, the combination between the Saturday Soup Kitchen page and our personal profile pages, have contributed to the creation of a private event, and a buzz around it across the 4 weeks before the exhibition date. Two local newspaper (‘The Hackney Gazzette’, fig.29 and ‘The Voice’, fig.30) have interviewed us and published the story of our project online, while another one (Hackney Today) has been published on the paper version. As a result of the press releases, we have gained 120 shares on Facebook and more than 50 tweets ( see some at fig. 32). It was really important to frame E8plus in the social media sector, we have been using the QR code system during the project to enhance participation and have an online presence that would communicate about the project in a contemporary manner. The main web content was still shared on the main website of the project: cargocollective.com/e8plushackney (fig.31) This became the catalyst for all the other social media to be linked. So far we needed this strategy in order to communicate with our target audience: the local residents of Hackney, who are ‘Mostly of a young age and technologically prepared’ ‘London’s borough of Hackney, population 2007-2011’ from www.hackney.gov.uk.

FIG 30 -The article on the online edition of ‘The Voice’ newspaper.

Access the Article

FIG 29 -The article on the online edition of ‘The Hackney Gazzette’. SCAN ME !

Access the Article

FIG 28 -The Instagram page

Access the Instagram page

FIG 32 - The homepage of the E8plus Hackney website.

Access the website

FIG 32 - Some comments on Twitter

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brecht B. (1936) Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting. Berlin: e-book. Buck L. and McClean D. (2012) Commissioning contemporary art, a handbook for curators, collectors and artists, London: Thames & Hudson. Bourriaud N. (2002)‘Relational Aesthetics’, Dijon: Les presses du réel Campbell J. (1949) The hero with a thousands faces, California: New World Library. Calvino I. (1972) The Invisible cities, Italy: Einaudi. Elbæk U. (2013) Leadership on the Edge, Denmark: e-book. Foucault M. (1969) ‘Essays at the Societé Francais de philosophie’. Paris Krogerus M. and Tschappeler R. (2008) Fifty models for strategic thinking, Zurich: Kein und Aber. O’ Doherty B. (1986) Inside the White Cube, Los Angeles: University of California press. Orwell G. (1933) Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz Norberg-Schutls (1971) ‘International Journal Of Architecture and Urban Development Vol.1, No.3, Winter 2012’. Iran: University of Tehran. Perls, Hefferline and Goodman (1951) ‘Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality’. Julian Press Potter Abbott H. (2008) The Cambridge introduction to narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge university press. Rifkin J. (2010) The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, USA. Tarcher Inc. Ruiz M. A. (2003) ‘Wisdom from the Four Agreements (Charming Petites), New York: Peter Pauper Press Tolstoy L. (1886) What then must we do? Russia: e-book. Tuan,Yi-Fu. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

WEBSITES: Annual CHAIN report for outer boroughs (1st April 2012 to 31st March 2013) www.broadwaylondon.org/CHAIN.html [Accessed December 2013] Charity Commission (2012) NCVO/TSRC, http://data.ncvo.org.uk/category/ almanac/databank/ [Accessed November 2013] Griffin, H. (2012) Curator [gallery website] http://howardgriffingallery.com/ [Accessed December 2013] Hackney Council Chief Executive’s directorate (2013) http://www.hackney. gov.uk/xp-plans.htm#equality [Accessed December 2013] ‘London’s borough of Hackney, Homelessness strategy 2007-2011 http://www. hackney.gov.uk/Assets/Documents/homelessness-strategy.pdf [Accessed December 2013] ‘No More’ , St. Mungo action week report. June 2013 www.mungos.org [Accessed January 2014] Page B.,Chief Executive IPSOS MORI, social research institute(2013) Hackney in 2013 http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1551/Hackney-in-2013.aspx [Accessed November 2013] Sedghi, A. (2011) journalist at [www.theguardian.com] http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2011/jun/09/homelessness-englandmapped-data?guni=Data:in%20body%20link [Accessed January 2014] Spinks, R. (2012) Blogger & Interviewer [blog]. Available at: http://threecoursestory.tumblr.com/ [Accessed November 2013] http://thesaurus.narrative-environments.com/ [Accessed December 2013 to May 2014] Whitton, F., 2009. Conservationists are not making themselves heard. Guardian.co.uk Science blog, [blog] 18 June. Available at: <http://www.guardian. co.uk/science/blog/2009/jun/18/conservation-extinction-open-ground> [Accessed 23 June 2009].

APPENDIX STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

The development of this project has brought to the surface all the key elements of my personal and professional life, allowing me to fuse them together in an emotional and insightful journey. The following list shows what are the most prominent elements for me to be considered in a design project, based on the insights I gained from my major project. Each one of these have played a role of strenght or weakness in my experience, this is an attempt to analyse them and learn to improve my future practice. INFECT OTHERS WITH YOUR PASSION When I get infected by an idea, I try my best to work my way through it. This idea pervades all the aspects of my life: my own glory and dissolution. I believe that by contaging the others with your own passion, it allows it to grow bigger and expand beyond your control. I consider this as one of the main ingredients behind E8plus and I believed to have improved this featured of mine through this project. TIMING / PRIORITIES ‘The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones’. – Dwight Eisenhower I often struggled with setting up the priorities for my project. This has been my most complex design project in terms of management. I used to work without giving a defined structure to my work. It was hard to define what was important and what urgent, this often led me to loss of time and focus. I believe that this project has definitvely improved one of my previous major weaknessess: time management. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD In the context of the project, speaking with integrity revealed to be essential. I have learned to ‘say only what I meant’. Avoid using the Word improperly but being assertive with the tone. Using the power of my Word in the direction of truth, in respect of the others. MIND THE BOUNDARY PERSONAL / PROFESSIONAL LIFE Having to deal with a social / design project immerged me in a weekly routine that turned my personal into professional life and viceversa. I have learned that I am really goal oriented, therefore sometimes I need to take a step back and consider the people around me and their role in my life. In the time of the project, not everyone around my life is a collaborator!

BE SYNTHETIC ‘Brevity is the sister of talent’. – Anton Checkov I am a very talkative person and I have often struggled with summing up content. Through the time of the course and this project, I have learned how to improve this weakness. By the time I was able to sum up what I was doing in a sentence and explain it to my young cousin, I felt the project made much more sense. FAILURE IS A PERCEPTION, NOT A FACT ‘The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails’. – Jean Cocteau The last year has really defined my approach to design, I have researched and experimented to a larger extent than any other time of my life. I have had a rapid evolution that often led me to dislike my own work at a too early stage.I had the perception of failing my own expectations and the fear to let down the others around me. By deciding for myself my parameters of failure and success, I have trained and attempted to stay true to my opinion. As a process, at the end of each milestone of the project, I realized that it was all required to make me step further. DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ‘If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance’. – Orville Wright This is the main mission of my major project and guiding light for my life. I have trained to find the courage to ask questions and to express what I really wanted. By looking at art as a possible medium to create interaction between homeless people and emerging artists, I wanted to fight the assumptions linked the homeless condition with an easy language for my target audience: the local residents fo Hackney Central (E8). I stopped to assume and opened my life up to a change by fully commiting to the cause. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life

THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS

BRIEF Essential starting point, in Central Saint Martins it is the norm to question and eventually break the boundaries of the given briefs ( I experienced this myself several times). Although the situation changes completely when it comes to writing your own brief. A ‘white page syndrome’ plays the role of drastically increasing the number of possibilities, allows for movement in many different directions while in reality is keeping myself still. What could unlock me?

RESEARCH It attempts to create a solid base for the development of the project, througout this course I have learned to extend my research beyond the boundaries I was used to. A detailed desk research has been followed by a more ‘Participatory Observation’ of the flow of people in the space of my site. I iimmersed myself in volunteering activities and created questionnaires and set up informal interviews with the local residents of E8. I went on the street at night to paste my street art pieces and promoted the project through various urban interventions. This project has taught me about research more than any other before.

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

A WIDE OUTLOOK ON YOUR INTERESTS IS NOT ALWAYS THE KEY TO PRODUCE A GOOD BRIEF.

WRITING A BRIEF HELPS TO READ A BRIEF

The nature of my previous studies and my personality have played a major role in this section. I am a curios researcher but I had to face the challenge of narrowing down my interests to a specific topic. I went through different phases, sometimes hardly recognizing what was a temporary interest or a more durable one worth exploring. I made a step futher when I became conscious that a wide outlook on your interests is not always the key to produce a good brief.

Writing a brief has helped me also to read briefs better. I will consider many more elements from this moment on because I had experienced how hard it is to create the right conditions to make a design project start.

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

BE ASSERTIVE

RECOGNIZE YOUR PROFESSIONALITY

Through research I have learned to improve my assertivity. Dealing with various institutions across London required to being able to promote my ideas and make it feasible.

I have step into action research, which was one of my weaknesses before this project, and learned that the only way to get things done is to be upfront and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fear to bring my professional skills to validate my aims.

A N A LY S I S Identifying the problems and key insights from the research phase now seems like a quite linear process to me. What actually happened througout the project is that the information gathered were incredible various that the selection was a constant ‘push and pull’ process to create the first shape of E8plus.

DESIGN CRITERIA AND CONCEPT Finding the specific design direction that would define the project is the result of a narrowing down process given by a detailed but effective and productive analysis of the research methods. Conveying a story is what builds the roots of the project. In terms of content and aesthetic direction, this is the main tool I have learned to use in this discipline of Narrative Environments.

BROAD AND NARROW PICTURE OF DESIGN The broader picture of the project frames it between the community sector and the exhibition design one. The Narrative Environments fields are constantly fusing with each other therefore it seems hard to define what disciplines and skills have been responsible for the final outcomes of the project. I believe that E8plus can give a different angle to the field that is due to a wide use of technological / wide social media together with the elements of an hyper-local and specific context.On the other hand, when I look at the specific design making process, I can see how much experimenting and choosing the right materials has helped to reinforce the design concept developed and eventually the making of ‘the Experience’ of the project ( e.g. the street art paper pieces interventions).

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

USE ANALYSIS WISELY

TESTS AND THEORY

My main personal strenght/weakness is to be too analytical. This became a way for me to question every element of my project and deeply understand what they actually meant to me. It helped me to distinguish between temporary or more settled interest I wanted to explore throughout the project.

My previous psychology background has mostly defined the way I analized my research so far. My approach was more theoretical, and through this project I have found a way to build the foundations of my project into a more practical manner: testing on the site, prototyping and build my reflective pathway through making.

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

BRING YOUR OWN STORY IN

BUILD A NARRATIVE

When I think of a person interacting with my project, I immerse myself in the experience and bring personal elements of my own life in it to facilitate the process of understanding of how things the concept should pro-actively develop.

Coming to a concept goes along with building a story. These were two distinct elements to me before I joined the course. I was used to a way of thinking and elaborating concepts much more based on metaphors, a language taken from my previous experience in the advertising industry. I now cannot imagine any design concept development without considering the multiple elements that narrative theory can bring to enrich the practice.

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

EMBRACE A NEW APPROACH

CROSS THE BOUNDARIES OF DISCIPLINES

Defining the field for my own project is similar to define the field for your own professional life. I believe that the sector I would like to work in, should have a wider vision of the potentialities of the arts to address social issues. I have learned to bring the design into my life and embrace new techniques to get to bring my ideas to life.

Before I started this project, I thought I needed to have years of backgrounds of studies in those disciplines to produce cross-disciplinary work. This is the bias that I overcomed when I challenge myself by training in the development of new skills, as well when I accepted to learn from my collaborators and work in team more effectively than ever before.

PRODUCTION Making, making, making. I have approached the materiality of my project with an open mind to experiment. I have used plaster, clay, fabric, acrylic, wood and of course paper, the material I was more used to as an editorial graphic designer.

E VA L U AT I O N What defines success for a Narrative Environments project? I believe that sometimes narrative theory can really act like a ‘magic spell’ for the people that are outside the field. Framing my project has definitively helped to talk to my target audience but also to create the foundation of a universal language that can be easily understandable by everyone. I think that writing this report has also helped me a lot to take a step back and look at my work from the ‘researcher’ persepective, possibility that I couldn’t have had otherwise because I was too immersed in the dynamics of my project. I would say that the self-evaluation is the hardest part of the whole Narrative Environments process. I could affirm that the success of a project lies in the number of followers on social media, I could also identify it into the words of the participants or into the number of art pieces sold at the final exhibition and silent auction. But what makes this exercise harder than any other is to have to deal with your own vision of your work. The measure of success of your project is based on the standard I have set with myself before the start, but also the expectations other people has around me, the attempt to turn my ideas into action, aiming to produce a small hyper-local change and a commentary on the wider picture of the re-developing areas of London.

PERSONAL SKILLS

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

FAIL AND RE-MAKE

MATERIALITY CONFIDENCE

I learned not to be afraid to ask my collaborators and other people help to figure out the multiple techniques required to start the production of objects and installations. I also pushed myself much more than before in the practice of failing and starting all over again.

As a major weakness, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to naturally produce and ude materials properly before this project. I have had to work double the hours to be able to achieve what I wanted out of it: an hard but useful process. I have become more confident with laser cutting machines and the wood and ceramic workshops for the prodcution of the urbani interventions.

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