Social(ism)
What
Social(ism) is my project to document Social Housing architecture. The old Council or Corporation estates, which provided secure, affordable housing for so many until much was sold off.
Where
The images mainly capture buildings across the former London Boroughs of Shoreditch, Finsbury and St. Pancras. Mainly because they contain a rich diveristy of styles and eras but partly because I know and love the area so well.
Why
It's easy to pass by these buildings without giving them a second glance. In fact, not that long ago, people would actively avoid the places where they are prevalent. These boroughs were by words for deprivation even when I first moved to London in the 1980s but there has been considerable regeneration since. I would argue, though, that these areas contain once of the most healthily diverse populations in London with rich and poor rubbing shoulders like nowhere else. In the 100 years until the early 1980s, Corporation Housing, and its precursors, transformed, enormously for the better, the propects for a home for a great number of people. In particular, following the two World Wars, millions benefitted for the first time from a secure tenancy in a modern house. Building homes for heroes helped to change society forever. Or so we thought. Today's headlines tell of a return, at least in part, to a shortage of affordable homes to rent and the removal of all security of tenancy from large swathes of the less well off. What better time to appreciate what we once achieved?
How
For this project, all of the photos where captured using film, developed and printed by me. The analogue process seems fitting for a place which represents ground zero for the London Hipsters and seems in keeping with the appreciation of a lost era.