taCity

Category: Culture

  • #SaveILF

    Last Wednesday, a group of disabled people occupied the lobby of Parliament. This unprecedented action was taken in response to the immanent closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF). The responsibility of financially supporting those with disabilities will pass to local councils, who are already struggling with national austerity policies.…

  • A few subversive things…

    I haven’t posted in a while, and I can blame that on a number of things – illness, marking, administration, family – but  the bulk of most of my ‘free time’ has been devoted to writing (the fact that writing is now something done in our free time is I…

  • Save the South Bank’s Undercroft

    On the 6th March this year, I tweeted about plans to redevelop the South Bank in London. The following day, the full extent of these plans were detailed. The new ‘Festival Wing‘ development includes “the under-used spaces from the undercrofts” being turned into retail outlets, and the creation of a…

  • Creative Failure – cr8net 2012

    Failure is a dirty word. Business leaders won’t stand for it, politicians try to hide it and generally, it’s seen as something to avoid. But it seems, given the talks and discussions today at #cr8net hosted by CIDA, it is essential for creativity. The stories of how creativity has escaped…

  • The UK’s Cultural Quarters

    The notion of the cultural quarter is one that has been around for a while, yet is still being refined. Many cities across the UK have initiated the planning and development of a cultural quarter in an attempt to to stimulate growth and attempt to ‘re-vitalise’ the local economy along…

  • I hate EveryOne

    When you read stuff like this, it really does make you realise the folly of structuralist thinking, or more accurately, the curse of the ‘ism’. I remember reading something by Marcus Doel once when the opening line was “I hate everyone” (I forget in which one of the myriad of his marvellous essays it…

  • Homogenous Townscapes: The case of Guildford’s Picture Palace

    Having spent the last few years studying cities and extolling the virtues a more inclusive, democratic and less hegemonic urban environment, it was with a certain amount of exasperation that I recently heard some sad, and quite frankly, bewildering news concerning my home town of Guildford. For years now, there…

  • The BBC and the Body Culturik

    Having just attended a seminar at Demos regarding the ‘Politics of Cultural Participation‘, then listening to the speech which was given by Margaret Hodge, it was hardly surprising the speed at which the discussion focused on the ‘arts for arts sake’ debate, given the talk of public spending cuts. Without reiterating the argument…