Silwood Video Group collection of 21 film shorts, 10 interviews and 4 other pieces in two volumes

This practice-based research which is positioned within the field of art/community action and the creation of an oral history archive, has involved the researcher working collaboratively with residents from the Silwood Estate in London who formed a collective known as the Silwood Video Group. Jeremy Deller’s collaborative enterprises and Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics (1998) were key points of departure.

The Silwood Estate crosses two borough boundaries, Southwark and Lewisham, and is placed at a triangle between two railway lines and a main road. During the period of the research, the Estate has come to the end of a Single Regeneration Budget Scheme which has involved demolition and rebuilding on the Lewisham side and refurbishment on the Southwark side.

The Silwood Video Projects were jointly facilitated, directed and produced by the researcher and Mark Saunders of the ‘Spectacle’ artists group.

The research set out to provide a means for the Silwood residents to collaborate, document their experiences on living in the midst of a Government sanctioned urban regeneration, to recall the past and envisage the future. The residents who participated made their own film content with active direction from the researcher who also undertook post-production. Some public and closed meetings were also filmed as the regeneration project was being planned and implemented. Themes include ‘live issues’ such as confusion over responsibility for refuse collection when a local authority hands over the management of an estate to a housing association.

Funders included the European Social Fund ‘Equal –Working Broadband’ scheme and Advocacy, Participation and Non Governmental Organisations in Planning.

Screenings at PleinOpen Air in Brussels, 2004; Cities, Urbanity and Urban Intervention, Museum De Beau Art, Brussels, February 2003 and Real Estate: Does Picking A Camera Up Make a Difference at the ICA London, 24/08/05 and reviewed in Art and Architecture, Winter 05/06.