On a cold bright Sunday at the
end of October I took the Jubilee line to Bermondsey,
walked a bit and found the gallery Coleman Project Space
located in a pretty street, ten minutes from the station.
There I was greeted by two young women dressed in customised
white and yellow suits offering me a cup of tea. I sat
down on one of the camp stretchers, next to a neatly folded
blanket and careful to stay within the yellow and black
emergency zone marked on the floor. Sitting on another
stretcher opposite me were two older ladies. They nodded
and smiled at me while drinking cups of tea and chatting.
Next in was Ron Henocq director of the neighbour Café
Gallery Project who sat down like he was home at last.
Very soon an elderly couple were spotted crossing the
street in our direction, quickly they were greeted with
cups of tea, bottoms moved along and things began to get
lively. Then to add to the interesting concoction, a well
dressed man who turned out to be a local architect came
in to find out more about the project. Everyone started
talking at once. For a Sunday morning it was a lively
affair.
Artist Paula Roush showed me some of the press clippings
that the project had received while talking about the
history of the idea and its evolution. I was surprised
at the number of ‘entry points’ the project
had for local people and organisations. There were the
ex-workers of the Peek Freans biscuit factory, a driving
force behind the project, arts students from Camberwell
College of Arts enacting emergency situations and distributing
food aid, local film studio Sands Films had lent rare
film footage and other images from their picture library
and then of course there was the artists and curators
that form part of the local network of the Coleman Project
Space. It occurred to me while sitting there munching
on a rather delicious biscuit that here was a real, authentic
and contemporary community arts project. Roush had accomplised
something quite remarkable. The fusing and channeling
of varied local populations into a highly original conceptual
arts project. A project that has historical relevance,
that highlights the political and social repercussions
of urban regeneration and fosters positive and productive
relationships between art and local communities. Not only
that, but there was a real, tangible product that could
have an impact on real, tangible people! Phew! What an
achievement.
Still reeling from the possibility of such an idea I left
the project space, loaded up with biscuits for distribution.
Now I was going out to test the product of this creative
fusion in a real world situation. Thirty minutes later
I was standing in front of the St John's Church in Waterloo
Road. I have always noticed the large number of homeless
people who hang around this church and I thought it might
a good spot to distribute some emergency food relief.
I spotted a couple sitting under a pink blanket and gave
them each a biscuit. They were puzzled by the packaging,
the woman began reading the instructions carefully while
the man grinned at me with a toothless smile. There were
others who called to me reaching through for the boxes.
There were no thanks or awkward moments they just took
the boxes and sat down again. Next stop was Charing Cross
where I saw an old man standing on the street staring
into passing traffic. I approached him and gave him a
biscuit. He took it and put it in his pocket thanking
me profusely. Next to Trafalgar Square where a middle
aged man in a tracksuit was hobbling towards me. I gave
him a box which he began shaking violently. He asked me
what was in it. I said biscuits but I’m not sure
he believed me. He was puzzled by it’s shape, no
ordinary donations looked like this it seemed. He held
it in front of him as if it was an important parcel to
send or to be received. There was a dignity in that gesture
that touched me. He held my hand for a while and looked
off vacantly into the lights.
I felt a peculiar mix of emotions. I am not someone who
gives money to beggars, nor do I take an active interest
in any kind of charity. But I am not unaware of the problems
that exist, it’s just that I have never found the
‘right’ way for me to address the issue. Standing
with this biscuit in my hand, produced in association
with elderly, local ex-workers of the Freans Biscuit Factory,
who had in turn supplied biscuits to the starving populations
of Paris for a food relief operation in 1870, the process
and meaning of which was transferred and enacted within
a modern setting that saw hundred of arts students and
locals play out a situation that could occur in a distant
future and that does occur now in many countries where
hunger and starvation is the reality, I could see that
this biscuit carried a great deal of meaning. I suddenly
saw a productive, original and creative way to address
the issue of hunger within urban environments. I felt
elated. Not because I was “helping’ in a pseudo-christian
guise of compassion and charity, but rather because here
was an art project with real, transferable and relevant
meaning. I had at last found the ‘right’ way.