South Bank Situation

This is the kind of the thing I might normally drop a quick tweet about, having recently read about it in a news item.  However, it’s something that feeds into my general ideas about life in a modern cities, and thus, indirectly into my work, (not to mention much of the stuff I regularly bang on about here).

Skateboarders At The Undercroft.  Photo: The Guardian/Linda Nyland

Queen Elizabeth Hall.  (Photographer Unknown).

  

The particular item, published on The Guardian website few days back, [1.] relates to the resolution of an ongoing dispute between the powers that be and would-be developers of London’s Southbank Centre arts complex, on one side, and the skateboarders and graffiti writers who have colonised the concrete undercroft of the Queen Elizabeth Hall for decades, on the other.  It’s a case that had caught my eye some time ago, involving the proposed relocation of the skaters from the site as part of a process of redevelopment that would facilitate ‘improved retail opportunities’ amongst other things.  Refreshingly, it now appears that the skaters and ‘street rats’ have been victorious in their attempts to stay put.

BMXers At The Undercroft.  (Photographer Unknown)

Those ‘other things’ apparently included refurbishment of much of the existing site, along with new rehearsal facilities and implied, new community-based arts opportunities, so the issue is probably far from black and white.  I certainly wouldn’t want to judge definitively on the overall merits, not having researched it in any depth, and am as interested in the questions and conundrums it raises as anything else.  I will confess that the support of London Mayor Boris Johnson on the side of the skaters does give me pause, as he normally has some dubious or self-serving angle that only emerges later.

Skateboarders At The Undercroft.  (Photographer Unknown).

Nonetheless, I think we all know that, nowadays, ‘improved retail opportunities’ really means the prioritisation of profit over all else and the further homogenisation, standardisation and blanding-out of urban spaces by familiar commercial concerns.  It’s no longer a surprise when such moves are bundled together with some supposedly noble or culturally generous initiative, in an attempt to sway the planning authorities or justify the funding of a desirable project recategorised as an indulgent luxury in an era of dubious, utilitarian spending priorities.  The overall result is generally a dilution of any genuinely vital or resonant experience, however stylish the new provision may appear superficially, in the short term.  The assumptions of the mainstream and the exhortation to purchase an aspirational lifestyle normally end up trumping any more surprising stimuli or refreshing insights that a visitor might have otherwise gained in a given location.

Queen Elizabeth Hall.  Photo: Stephen & Lucy Dawson

This is probably the crux of the matter for me.  Whatever the economic rights and wrongs, it’s about the way that people interact with and experience the cities they inhabit; about whether that is done in a spontaneous, organic manner, or through the usual systems of control, patronage or marketing.  I’ve no particular enthusiasm for skateboarding, (although I can imagine having fun on a bike down there), but the adoption of an apparently unpromising or alienating urban environment for its adrenaline-fixated, rituals by a dedicated subculture, does seem to epitomise the idea of people finding and reinventing the city for themselves.  I’m also fascinated by how this has created a very particular quality of ‘place’ that no architect or planner could really have predicted.

The generations of skaters, who’ve passed through the space over the years, clearly do represent a self-identifying community with a shared passion and a particular perception of their surroundings that now seems to infuse the concrete, along with the polychromatic spray paint.  There’s a strong sense of their possessing the space through constant usage, rather than any form of official sanction or approval.  The skaters’ vociferous, media-savvy and very design-conscious ‘Long Live South Bank’ campaign demonstrates that this means a lot to many people, and is far more motivated and organised than a mere bunch of deadbeat kids looking for kicks might arrive at.

Santhanha Nguyen, '13', Acrylic On Board, 2012

I’m also reminded of Santhanha Nguyen’s painting ‘13’ that I saw at the ‘New Art West Midlands’ exhibition [2.] in March, and how skateboarding is intrinsic to her experience of the forgotten, forbidden or transitional spaces she paints (in a surprisingly traditional depictive mode).  Skating, like Parcour, Street Art, Urban Exploration, Street Dance, etc. are all clearly identified ways in which a city might be experienced on a more vital, physical, and potentially creative way, than compliantly shopping, swigging over-priced coffee or, (speak it softly), consuming official ‘culture’ in a disengaged manner [3.].

Queen Elizabeth Hall.  (Photographer Unknown).

Such activities feel like valuable means of short-circuiting the mechanisms of spectacle (be it Capitalist, or otherwise), in which we all function.  Nguyen’s work illustrates that the division between them and more traditional art forms may be pretty meaningless to the majority of contemporary artists, - something the planners and designated cultural guardians may have overlooked.  I can’t help feeling that a more creative approach would have been to find ways of drawing on the activities in the undercroft as a valuable resource, rather than seeking to sweep them away as an inconvenient impediment to ‘progress’.

Queen Elizabeth Hall Undercroft.  Photo: Slake Magazine.

I’m perpetually bemused and intrigued by the paradoxical nature of urban life.  This particular issue is clearly riddled with paradoxes. Here are a few of the more obvious ones that occur to me…

• The organic and de-facto occupation of the shadowy world beneath Q.E.H. by skaters is ironic, given the highly planned utopianism with which the whole complex originally came into existence.  The friction between the high-minded but, ultimately paternalistic, Modernist/Socialist experiment, and the osmotic, instinctive aspects of Human aspiration, is one of the defining characteristics of the post-war period. 

• It would be easy to paint all this superficially, as battle between a counter culture and ‘The Man’.  Yet, whilst many celebrate skate culture as a grass roots expression of youth and the vitality of the street, others see it as a bunch of self indulgent, and often, surprisingly middle-class white slackers imposing their scruffy, noisy aesthetic on a public space, with little concern for other users.  There are some for whom the clatter of boards echoing off concrete is a stroll by the river spoilt, rather than a cause for cheer.

• The whole of the Southbank complex came about, in the wake of the Festival of Britain, as an attempt to concentrate a variety of cultural opportunities together on a site long associated with entertainment, (albeit of an often, disreputable form).  One couldn’t argue that it wasn’t done with vision and, for the most part, a genuine concern for the quality of what is on offer.  And yet, how often do we still find that one person’s appreciation of cultural quality is another’s exclusive elitism, or that someone’s low-grade leisure activity is another’s life-changing epiphany.  I’m always left thinking that there’s much education needed on both sides of such debates.  I’m also struck by the thought that, back when Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre rubbed shoulders with bear pits, bawdy houses and gambling dens, there was probably less distinction between ‘culture’ and popular entertainment.

 Irene Baqué, 'Long Live South Bank', Video, Vimeo

• It interests me that the ‘Long Live South Bank’ campaign was keen to emphasise the historical importance of the undercroft skate scene, (branding itself with one of the space’s distinctive, angular pillars).  When outlaw street culture becomes a branch of ‘heritage’, to be treasured and preserved, we have entered a whole new context.  This is echoed in the way that so-called Brutalist architecture, (of which much of The South Bank complex is a prime example), has changed in status from utopian initiative, through failed, alienating experiment, to fondly remembered heritage in just a few, short decades.

• It is a commonplace assumption that the post-war (Socialist) consensus, epitomised by Southbank, only equals social control, bureaucracy, and state sclerosis.  Yet, the widespread privatisation of all aspects of society that now prevails, and which talk of introducing new spending opportunities, into a once resolutely civic space indicates, can rarely be said to equate with genuine ‘freedom’ (a term that the Market uses with abandon).  Which is the greater freedom in reality – the freedom to exploit and shape one’s environment, and establish an alternative micro-culture in the process; or the freedom to consume a range of over-priced, non-essential products pre-chosen for us in accordance with the dictates of the marketplace?  Experience tells us that the latter rarely enhances our freedom to wander (or wonder) at will, routinely excludes those without the requisite spending power, and is generally about purchasing a lifestyle off the shelf, rather than evolving one’s own.

• If, as has been claimed, the new proposed development was to include new artistic opportunities for the local community, or those routinely excluded from the arts, what else, apart from shopping, might have been sacrificed in order to preserve the skaters’ freedom to remain?  Perhaps the real question for our society should be, why two such debatably desirable things should be perceived as mutually exclusive, and what part commercial imperatives have really played in bringing that about.

Chris Bourke, 'Strictly Roots And Culture', Lino Cut, 2014

I’m sure you can think of plenty of other debating points of your own.  I, for one, will listen out a little more keenly for the echoing, subterranean racket of skate wheels next time I’m on the south bank of the Thames.  In fact, writing this has reminded me just how long it is since I did that, and how overdue I am for an excursion down the Smoke.  It also explains why none of these photographs are originals, for which, apologies.

[1.]:   'Skaters Will Stay At The Undercroft As London's Southbank Centre Gives In', Mark Brown, The Guardian, Thursday 18 September.

[2.]:  ‘New Art West Midlands’, 14 February - 18 May, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, (And Various Regional Venues),

[3.]:  Over the years, I have, of course, spent many hours at Southbank - consuming official culture, and on occasion, swigging over-priced coffee.  I would claim that the ‘disengaged’ part is the real discriminator here but that could just be my own brand of elitism, I suppose.  I have, on numerous occasions, also paused to watch the skateboarders.