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www.claremarketreview.com --Volume 104, Issue 3 ----su.claremarketreview@lse.ac.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------VOLUMECIV--------CLARE MARKET REVIEW issue 3 ----------------------------MAY2009---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Editors Sean Baker and Alex Jones

Copy Editor - Sydney Smith, Submissions Editor - Jacob Levine, Art Editor David Michon, Web Editor - Sean Deel, Technical Editor - Eric King, Community Editors - Alex White and Jessi Tabalba, Business Manager - Nishant Bagadia, Treasurer - Rosalie Winn, Events Coordinators - Phyllis Lui and Rayna Coulson Visiting Editors - Julian Boys and Daniel Yates Associate Editors - Joshua Cook, Annalise Toberman, Michaela Muscat, Lotta Staffans, Oscar Tapp Scotting, Nizar Manek, Ellen Aabo, Brett Noble, Jonathan Montpetit, Pratyusha Rao, Charlotte Rooney

the journal of the LSE Students’ Union Cover Artwork from “The King’s Cross Series” by Pilar Santos www.pilarsantos.com

Clare Market Review

Editorial 1

Fashion Bloggers 25

Photo Prize 2

WK Cheoh 13

Antigone Valerie 6

Will Self 15

Factory Theatre 10 Caroline Ward 17 CENSORSHIP 18 LDN Fashion 20

CYNTHIA FONG 27

Kyle Taylor 29 Aya Haidar 31 Eric Chow 33

Thames Outreach 35 Judy Fu 37 Megan Jones 39

Winter Poem 43 Contributors 45

Volume 104, Issue 3

Clare Market Review

year since the relaunch of Clare, and three issues down the line. We have solicited, edited, designed and printed work from industry leaders, academics, students, poets, writers, artists and dead people. Now we reign our focus right in to home - London.

Walking around London it is hard not to feel the shifting aesthetic. The colossal structures of Kingsway, northwards to the buzzing toy-town of Camden, east towards the metallic city and shanty Bricklane. Perhaps to the West End - deliciously tacky, expensive and seedy at the same time; and then south as far as Southbank - where the carnival atmosphere oozes from the musicians, book-stalls and skaters.

And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the tour guide. Out of all this, unquestionably, comes a home and an inspiration for artists. Just amble anywhere in London and the abundance of new emerging talent is clear. But at LSE, in the centre of all this, where is the art? At a glance we seem devoid of artistic expression. All facts but no figurines. But true this is not. Neath the seams many of us are enjoying and exploring our ideas through some a medium or another.

THE EDITORIAL

Whilst this issue is a homage to all the wonderful of artistic London, it is also a stamp from LSE to show that we are here too. In the pages that lie ahead Clare has diverged from her well-trodden wordy path and taken to the gold-paved streets, camera, paintbrush and PVA in hand and etched a fresco of art in this here city as we know it.

Home-grown talent sprinkled throughout the issue we are also delighted to invite Daniel Yates and Julian Boys to curate and compile our music supplement. Unfold it right and bliss awaits you, get it wrong and you may just unfurl an army of viking warrior ships on the people of London.

One

In these unpleasant times of exam-induced stress, see Clare as a welcoming friend; coaxing you out of your unrest, providing you with a warm mug of ease and some calming words of encouragement. Sean Baker and Alex Jones

Volume 104, Issue 3

a small insiight into

The LSE Photo-prize 2009

Happy Feat a.k.a. Tarantinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dream

Slawek Kozdras

London's gloomy weather is an inspiration. Rare appearances of sun are an instant kick to go out and photograph, everyday blandness is great for London art.

3 The annual photography exhibition showcased a wide range of photography by LSE staff and students. It attracted over 100 entrants and more than 500 photographs, of which four were deemed winners. None of these are the winning entrees. Instead these are three which really caught Clare’s beady eyes. To see the winners and more you will just have to go to www. lse.ac.uk / collections / artsAndMusic /

Clare Market Review How far does your average academic use photography’s powers of bringing people to life in their texts? Hardly at all! Aside from the anthropologists, the standard LSE monograph is too often devoid of human faces, even on the jacket. Tables, graphs, dense text, hundreds of pages of arguments about people, the states they are in, policies which shape them, matters of life and death. But God forbid we actually see them. That might detract from our High Seriousness. The designers of Power Point have got the message. They have designed into their standard formats, helpful photo application opportunities. In the world of Development Policy, some senior practitioners will hardly let three screens appear in succession without putting up alongside the bullet points, images of people doing something appropriate to the theme. Publishers and book designers understand this. Students certainly appreciate photos. Social networking sites are not afraid to put faces to names. What’s the academics’ problem? It was notable in last year’s LSE Photo Competition how few academics entered. If we wanted to put up a cricket team against the students, or recruit an orchestra, we could probably do it. It cannot be a lack of the competitive spirit – academics are notoriously fiercely competitive about rank, turf, research grants and honour. But if they take good photos, they are keeping pretty quiet about it. My suspicion is that we are dealing with a professional deformation – too much reading and writing dulls the human imagination. When I pick up a book without photos, my heart sinks a bit. It could have had so much more life. L’imagination, au poivoir! by Peter Loizos, March 2009

Volume 104, Issue 3

Shaw Library: Fingerprints

Zhou Lei

It reminds me of Bangkok - motorcycles screaming the same earsplitting sound. The industrial accent of East London; any corrugated roof and grayish colour will make me less homesick. I miss the feeling that you can spit anywhere - this does not mean I like spitting or deem it appropriate, it just the way people treat their environment; like people here who litter with cigarette butts - seems like they can evaporate. Let it snow, I will pay to get back the a whitish transportation chaos. No cars, no incessant construction noise, and people throwing snow balls in your face, then darting off. That's democracy; what I am here for. It makes me feel a little depressed. Not because it's boring. It's a city full of vitality. It drains you, uses you and very easily leaves you feeling burnt out.

Clare Market Review

Palestinian Terrorists

Filippo Dionigi London is a city that It has nothing to do with all makes me feel often the other cities I know... lonely and alienated. It is a place where socializing, meeting London is a city with a friends and building unique artistic life, but what your community is is particularly stimulating is particularly difficult. how this city makes me feel. This is a strong incentive to express yourself and try to find your place in an inhospitable environment.

Volume 104, Issue 3

Antigone Valery

tells us about three of sculptures influenced her time in London, comments on what the means to her.

her by and city

Clare Market Review

Where do you like to relax in London? How does London compare to another city you know well? I dont want to compare London to Athens, for example, because I feel that they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be compared. They are totally different in culture, people and weather - both are special to me!

I prefer to take long walks - either in the city, by the riverside or in the parks

Volume 104, Issue 3

I have always been intrigued by architectural spaces, business buildings, blocks of flats, buildings that are being constructed and those that are being demolished. Buildings mostly stand there and witness the transient and constantly changing landscape of a city, sometimes hiding an older city beneath. Corners, junctions, curves, narrow alleys, wide streets, etc. create smaller spaces and forms within a space. I am interested in visually exploring the big monumental buildings that look lifeless in the exterior, but, that also enclose life. In a way, most people could relate to a space in the city we live in as "a symbol of solitude for the imagination;" as Gaston Bachelard says in his book "The Poetics of Space". In my boxes I attempted to create small spaces, corners, angles using not a room but a whole building. Intensionally, I wanted them to have a sensitivity, a fragility - by making small empty spaces, without using any human presence. I like Giorgio de Chirico paintings of empty squares with hints of human presence - like the smoke of the chimneys or the trains in the distance. In most of my work there is no direct emotion. I try to keep the works clean from my emotions; though perhaps some viewers can relate to the works differently because of their own experiences, memories from different spaces and places within the city. Antigone Valery, March 2009 How does artistically?

London

inspire

you

Many major art things happen in London, there are many galleries and museums displaying important artworks. I like the atmosphere - the merging of the old and new.

How does London make you feel? When I was living in London I was feeling excited, strong and free of all the things I could see and do. Every time I talk about it I have "happy thoughts". Every time I visit I feel like I never left!

If you were Mayor of London for a day, what would you do? I am sorry but I would not accept the position!

Clare Market Review

Volume 104, Issue 3

The Factory Sitting in a Brooklyn apartment in lateAugust, I was trawling the Internet to find something to do upon arriving in London the following week. I found my way to the Globe’s web site in an act of unabashed ignorance of London’s alternative theatre scene. I’d resigned myself to something mandated in the tourist guidebook. Browsing the listings, I ran across a midnight showing of Hamlet, advertised as an avant-garde production by a theatre company called The Factory. Two days after arriving in London, I found myself at half-past one in the

theatre Sean Deel

morning in the Upper Gallery at a soldout Globe, watching a man spatter a can of baked beans across the planks and tear open a bag of flour, covering the characters in the ghostly powder before performing Ophelia’s funeral scene. A stuffed deer lay abandoned nearby. The crowd was roaring in laughter. Josh Hartnett, away from Hollywood for his West End debut in Rain Man, made a brief appearance as the Captain. During one of the acts, no two actors were allowed on the stage at the same time. In another, the members of the troupe who’d lost the rochambeau which determines the cast on a nightly basis

were made to recite the lines while their companion players mimed and acted in silent synchronisation. I’d seen Hamlet before, and this particular mise en scène was novel, even without accounting for the raucous laughter of the late-night crowd that tends to be lacking from stagings of Shakespeare’s tragedies. But this wasn’t typical. In fact, nothing was. Everything about the play was decided on the night: the cast, the props, the variable obstructions set by director Tim Carroll. Every performance was an undulating, unpredictable reinterpretation that attested to the versatility of the source text. One week later I went back, this time to the Hampstead Theatre. The play was distinct from the one I’d seen a week earlier, and not just because James McAvoy was reading the Captain’s cameo from a torn-out page standing in the seat in front of me. The cast had

Clare Market Review

changed, as it always did, and the title role was inhabited by the fiery Alex Hassell, the company’s co-creative director. And this time, the play’s final duel took the form of a raw-celery eating contest which was all the more visceral because of Horatio’s clear disgust. The obstructions had changed as well. Tim Carroll, the company’s internationally seasoned and acclaimed creative force who conceived of the troupe’s winning formula while directing Hamlet in Budapest, had imposed what seemed an insurmountable challenge this night: each scene would be performed in random order, selected blindly from his very own hat by audience members, and identified not by act and scene number, but merely by the scene’s first line of dialogue. The actors didn’t miss a beat. The performance retained its spontaneity and participatory geist, and at one point actors demanded audience members’ clothes for costume changes. But this performance was far less car-

Volume 104, Issue 3 nivalesque, and so managed more pathos. After intermission, the audience simply stayed in the bar, and the players performed an act amongst them. Hassell’s Hamlet climbed onto the counter to deliver his existential ruminations. Whereas the Globe’s audience encouraged a wacky looseness to the show, the Hampstead performance, though structurally disjointed, managed a profundity and coherence. The contrast between the two performances highlights the success of the Factory’s bigger project and underlying ethos: experimentation. The company started in 2006, a response to an acting industry that ‘too often withheld a sense of independence from the creative artists within it’. Tim Evans and Alex Hassell, colleagues at the Central School of Speech and Drama, started the company to allow theatre artists: actors, writers and directors, to practice their craft and exalt their talent, free from the restraints of an industry that seemed to be sacrificing its art for business’s sake. The Factory have uncovered the fallacious antagonism between the two forces: once word got out, the Factory’s Hamlet sold out every week of its year’s run. The company has attracted the praise (and patronage) of Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, and Richard Wilson.

12 The company went back underground after the curtains went down on Hamlet, popping up for occasional performances for those with their ear to the ground. Eliciting attention throughout the world, Hassell and Evans have found themselves beckoned to New York for talks of a stateside run, and the company returned to Budapest to pay homage to the origins of their flagship show. Their writing and directing studios have carried on in their new offices on Caledonian Road, and they’ve recently exhibited their success to cramped audiences at Shoreditch’s Electricity Showrooms in a brief run called “Round 1,” aimed at trying out original material under the able direction of a furrow-browed Tim Carroll. The company are now tackling Chekhov — experimentation with The Seagull began in April, and anticipation is high to see if the troupe will relight the spark ignited by Hamlet. To see a Factory performance is to be reminded of the potential of the medium and to witness its art practiced, despite its subversiveness, in its most traditional sense: with zeal, commitment and ardour.

Photos courtesy of The Factory Theatre Company. www.thefactorytheatre.co.uk

Clare Market Review

Artist of the london school of economics:

Wee Keat CHEOH

Volume 104, Issue 3 How has living in London influenced your artistic persuasions? London is a very diverse city with a great variety of subjects and locations to photograph. I can simply walk aimlessly without any true objective and somehow, something will always pop-up. I do wish that London was a much safer city though.

Where in London do you find most inspirational? Nothing compares to Richmond Park. What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? The Bank area for street-shots, the area around the Thames, Richmond Park. Brompton Cemetery is also a very nice and peaceful place that I enjoy visiting now and then.

All photos by Wee Keat Cheoh (www.pbase.com/night86mare)

Clare Market Review

will self

an extract from ’s ‘foie humain’, part of his collection of short stories - ‘liver’ Hillary locked the till; Val pocketed the key. Hilary checked the toilet to see that no one had collapsed in it (a common occurrence with members’ guests, who, invited in for a singular ‘drink’, found themselves indoctrinated by a cult of libations); Val finished his V & T. The members slopped down the stairs into Blore Court, sniffing the astringent bouquet of the early-evening piss left there by the dossers. Hilary switched off the lights and locked the door of the plantation; Val pocketed the key. Crossing Wardour Street, then rounding the corner by the Vintage House and proceeding up Old Compton Street, the Plantation members - who appeared in public, en bloc, perhaps only once or twice a decade - presented a curious spectacle: overgrown children, their clothes a lustrum or two out of date, holding hands to form a crocodile that swam upstream against the current of fluvial time.

Out in front was the Dog, sniffing the route ahead, then darting back - if an overweight Scots drunk can ever be said to ‘dart’ anywhere, unless, that is, he is actually playing darts - to round up the others. Val and Hilary had linked arms - but out of desperation, not defiance. Val had a spotted silk

Volume 104, Issue 3

scarf knotted around his scraggy throat; dark glasses pinched his ruby nose with its bloody filigree. In his free hand a walking stick wavered over the paving; he looked like a sick old man - he was forty-six. Alcohol had done ageing’s business - psychically as well as physically. Val was so long accustomed to the furred tranquility of the Plantation that rush-hour London had a furious, insect intensity for him; as he proceeded among them, the pedestrians buzzed and flitted, settling in the food-spattered roadway, then taking flight when a lumbering lorry tried to crush them. Up to Cambridge Circus, then dazedly across and on to the Seven Dials. Hilary starggered over the cobbles of Neal Street; he needed Val’s support almost as much as visa verca. The slim hips that Val had once impotently coveted were now pulpy. Beneath his Breton fisherman’s jersey Hilary’s liver

was swelling, as fatty globules accumulated in its cells. Already the macrovesicular steatosis was under way, and, to confirm further still that Hilary warranted the feminine personal pronoun, a spongy mass was building up in concentric rings around his nipples; a forecast - for the paps that ne’er gave suck - of alcohol-induced gynaecomastia. Val’s clawed hand, its nails striped with the paired bands hypoalbuminemia, dug into the soft underside of Hilary’s wing. He guided his fattened goose past the ugly pile of the Freemasons’ Hall on Great Queen Street - possible the pre-eminent club among the many who would never have accepted these members as members. Her Ladyship was flagging on the long march, while the Typist collapsed hopelessly on the lip of a concrete cup spiky with greenery. A passer-by, confused by her two pieces of tweed and general air of respectability, leant down to inquire if she was ‘all right’, then recoiled from her gin breath and hurried on. The stony canyon of Kingsway terrified the members; they hugged the ankles of the buildings, keening for mercy. They almost scampered into Lincolns Inn Fields, and made their escape, via the Old Curiosity shop, into Portugal Street. They didn’t properly regain their breath until, cigarettes lit, they were ensconced in the theatre bar, and the Martian had bought them all a drink - a triple for Val, who was most in need. ‘Why - why the fuck,’ Val panted, ‘did we fucking walk here?’ But, of course, none of them knew. © 2008, Will Self. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Clare Market Review

Caroline Ward

Cubistic Doodle

Volume 104, Issue 3 1968 marked the fortieth anniversary of the year when the Lord Chamberlain relinquished his power to censor all new plays before they could be put on stage in London’s West End. This represents a watershed moment in the history of the stage in Britain.

The origins of the idea of censorship of drama by the Crown or the state probably date back at least as far as the Elizabethan period, when the Master of the Revels vetted all new plays to be put on at court. The idea of censoring plays on political, as much as religious grounds or those of decency, can arguably be traced back to the seventeenth century. Under the Protectorate, (1650-1660) following the Civil War, drama of all kinds was banned, essentially on puritan religious grounds. Shakespeare’s Richard II - a play in which a weak, ineffectual and self-indulgent king is deposed by one of his erstwhile courtiers, the future Henry IV – was banned in 1680 at a time when parliament was expressing increasing discontent with the monarch. It was with the Licensing Act of 1737 that the Lord Chamberlain’s powers of censorship became linked with Parliament rather than the monarch. Among the more famous playwrights who fell foul of the Lord Chamberlain were Oscar Wilde – whose Salomé had to be written in French and put on in Paris to avoid the objection here in Britain to plays on religious subjects - and George Bernard Shaw (instrumental as a Fabian in the setting up of LSE), whose Mrs Warren’s Profession could not be performed publicly for a quarter of a century because it dealt with prostitution. The Lord Chamberlain’s work was, in effect, carried out not by an individual but a committee of readers, who applied themselves assiduously to their task, producing reports which today make fascinating reading. For example Harold Pinter, now No-

Ensor bel laureate, found his play The Caretaker described as ‘a piece of incoherence in the manner of Samuel Beckett, though it has not that author’s vein of nihilistic pessimism, and each individual sentence is comprehensible if irrelevant.’

A problem also arose within the Home Office itself – with all this exposure to subversive and obscene matter quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The patrician censors adopted a code of their own in their reports so that their (lady) typists’ minds would not be sullied. They did this by recourse to a then popular brand of biscuits - Huntley and Palmers. Homosexuals were ‘Huntleys’ and prostitutes were ‘Palmers’ The early seventies saw a considerable increase in the prominence given to nudity and sex in new drama, and also in the use of expletives. However there were still some later attempts at censorship by private pressure groups, perhaps most notably Mary Whitehouse’s

19 National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, which in 1982 prosecuted Howard Brenton’s Romans in Britain. This politically-engaged history play drew parallels between the Roman invasion of Britain and the contemporary presence of British troops in Northern Ireland. The scene which Whitehouse objected to involved the rape of a male druid by two Roman soldiers. The director of the play, Michael Bogdanov, found himself charged with ‘procuring an act of gross indecency’, an offence which could, at least in theory, have led to three years’ imprisonment. In a dramatic moment worthy of any playwright, the defence demonstrated that her solicitor, whom Whitehouse had sent to view the offending production in her stead, could not possibly say with certainty (from the relatively cheap seat which he had bought, at some distance from the stage) whether what he had seen was the actor’s thumb (as the defence maintained) or another part of

Clare Market Review his anatomy, and the charge was dropped.

Most recently, in 2007 the pressure group Christian Voice attempted to sue the Director of the BBC, Mark Thompson, for showing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which they considered blasphemous. However both the original court and the appeal court ruled that the play ‘taken in context’ did not constitute blasphemy.

It is perhaps premature to say that a situation has now been reached where all playwrights feel they have the freedom to write exactly as they wish, without fear of external interference in their work. Nevertheless, the very fact that a play such as Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and F***ing can enjoy not only a succès d’estime but a West End run, indicates that drama has moved on a long way from the time, even as late as the mid 1960s, when plays could still be banned for blasphemy, and Edward Bond’s Early Morning was censored because of its irreverent portrayal of Queen Victoria, who had by then been dead for nearly 70 years.

If there have been no instances of censorship led by government in recent years that is not quite the end of the often troubled, and sometimes surprising relationship between the state and theatre. In the 1980s the Thatcher government banned the leader of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, from being broadcast on British television and radio. The BBC got round this by arranging for his words to be voiced over by an actor, Paul Loughran. When the government line softened, after the departure from office of Mrs Thatcher, Adams was allowed to speak in his own voice and the actor who had enjoyed this unlikely source of work found himself ‘resting’.

Angus Wrenn

Volume 104, Issue 3

London

Clare Market Review

fashion photography

Volume 104, Issue 3

Clare Market Review

Volume 104, Issue 3

Page 20 Photography by Christian Smith www.christian-smith.com Model - Cher Brighton Hair: Kei @ Windel Make-Up: Nobuko

Page 21 Photography by René August Model - Jermaine @ Oxygen Models Hair/Make-Up by Michelle Webb Styling and Bag Design by Sara Ratcliffe Page 22 Stlying by Leah Gust Page 23 Photography by Christian Smith Page 24 Photography by René August Photo Assistant - Carlos Saladén Vargas Model - Alice @ D1 Models Styling by Ned Kay Make-Up by Tomoko Kinoshita Hair by Shinya Fukami Production by Tayo Campbell-Alowonle

he way in which we interact with the media has evolved; we look to printed publications for reassurance but it is on the internet where we gain much of our inspiration. On these pages lie the views of three of Britain’s most influential fashion and design bloggers. Here they give their views on the cultural centre of the universe. Ironically, this should serve only as an introduciton, after reading, do as you know best and take to your keyboard. SB

Clare Market Review

the

Fashionistas KATJA HENTSCHEL at glamcanyon

Who is your favourite British designer? Gareth Pugh. Although I was unimpressed with his last collection and I do wonder whether or not he is a bit of a one-trick pony. I do love his creative mind and the fact that although some claim his stuff to be unwearable one does see people wear it and it works. I also think he’s a nice bloke. Describe London style in one word? Eclectic. What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? I’m afraid I don’t have a secret address book. I think London has something for everyone, depending on who is visiting I drag them to Dalston Jazz Bar, Broadway Market, The Prince George, Brick Lane. The usual really. What do you like most about London? It’s always been my favourite city for all things relating to self-expression. People here are super creative and go to great lengths to express themselves through clothes, art, music and more. London really offers a non-judgmental environment to allow for such extroversion. Not every city can claim a similar attitude. Where in London do you most like to sit and why? The pavement outside the Cat & Mutton by Broadway Market. I go there with friends on the weekend; we order a bottle of wine and watch people walk past. It gives you that ‘aaahhh’ feling. What would you do as Mayor of London for the day? I would try to find ways to better occupy youths in Hackney, as an attempt to lower crime rates. There are so many ways in which to positively influence young people. www.glamcanyon.com photos courtesy of www.glamcanyon.com

Volume 104, Issue 3

26 RAVI KHANNA at joes[a]fiend

When in London where do you most like to shop? Good Hood, they stock great brands and there is no pretense. It’s run by people who genuinely care about curating a fantastic retail store. What one item of clothing sums up London style in the here and now? I think the Burberry mac sums up London right now and will continue to in the future. It’s symbolises all that is good about British fashion and that even decades after it was first realsed it is as cool as it ever was. Describe London style in one word? Innovative. What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? The Convience Store, if you can find it, they’ve just moved into a space at the St Martins Lane Hotel. They stock some of the greatest brands from around the world, including the best of British. Where in London do you most like to sit and why? The garden of Rochelle Canteen in Arnold Circus, the space is shared with fashion designers Giles Deacon and Luella Bartley so you get to see some of the best dressed people in London walking around. It’s a high fashion little world of its own. www.joesafiend.co.uk STEVE and EJ at stylesavage When in London where do you most like to shop? EJ: I quite like Hurwendeki and lots of the boutiques in Soho and around Carnaby Street. I prefer smaller shops to big ones, as there’s usually a greater chance of finding something really interesting. Who is your favourite British designer? S: There are so many exciting designers emerging on to the scene. The future for British menswear looks bright. If I had to pick my current favourite, I’d stump for Carolyn Massey. Looking back over the last few years, Kim Jones because he has been consistent in his greatness and influence. What one item of clothing sums up London style in the here and now? S: A pair of well-worn and much-loved Church’s brogues. Describe London style in one word? EJ: International. What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? EJ: Our address book is never secret- in fact, we’re in the process of making a map for the blog! What do you like most about London? S: That it is so busy. There are so many places to go, and things to see, it is criminal to be bored in this fair city. What would you do as Mayor of London for the day? EJ: Give everyone the day off! S: Ban cars and throw the biggest street party imaginable. www.stylesavage.blogspot.com

Clare Market Review

THIS IS

GARAMOND

THIS IS

CLARE

Volume 104, Issue 3

fashion STUDENT Cynthia Fong studies Fashion Design with Knitwear at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design. Cynthia Fong arrives at her studio at 9am each day to embark on a days independent learning, as is the way at CSM. Cynthia Fong thinks studying in London has a great deal to do with her creative process.

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How has living in London influenced your artistic persuasions? Living in London has really expanded my sense of seeing contradiction in photos. That is, the coexistence of traditional extremes in one space. Where in London do you find most inspirational? I find the East End - Brick Lane and Columbia Road Markets - as well as St. James’s Park to be the most inspirational spots in London. Again, two extremes. What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? Oh my goodness; pastries on Sunday morning at a little patisserie stand just off Brick Lane, blueberry muffins from ‘the courtyard’ on a Sunday afternoon just opposite the flower market, fresh, warm apple pie from Progresso in Notting Hill, the underground Friendly Society in Soho for London’s best deal on cocktails and churros from the Brazilian woman at Greenwich Market. I see London through my stomach! Where in London do you most like to sit and why? I love to sit on the benches just across the Thames from Westminster. It seems to be the portion of the Thames path that most people forget, though it’s wonderful for watching the boats chug along, and divine at sunset when the final crest of light slips behing Parliament. What would you do as Mayor of London for the day? Make the entire tube system handicapped accesible, ban cars from Central London, install machines that can distribute Oyster cards, implement a program to educate people on how to be aware of human beings around them and launch a city-wide customer service campaign in bars, restaurants and banks. Oh, and I’d close down NatWest. Rudest people this side of the Atlantic.

Artist of the london school of economics:

Kyle Taylor

talks and photographs

east london

Volume 104, Issue 3

Aya Haidar - Conceptual Art

Clare Market Review

Growing up, I recall knitting with my grandmother as she related stories of her life in Lebanon. This intergenerational narrative is very present in my work, the passing of the skill and memory from one generation to another. The durational practice of the craft is significant here, as it allowed me to share and reflect on my grandmother’s stories as we stitched together. My handmade objects provide comfort and connection with the past through the reuse of material and the recollection of the stories embroidered on them, making that which might have been passed on aurally into something physical. My investigation is that of the limitations of a visual language within fine art, leading me to explore the fundamental elements of language that contribute to a story. Communication is what binds us and arguably divides us. Some express themselves best through a newspaper article, others a poem or a thesis. My message is channelled through the visual. I recount generational narratives in relation to my heritage. My focus on developing intercultural dialogues is a vital step in offering alternative ways to see the world and initiating dialogue about the globalised world we live in.

AYA HAIDAR

By reviewing history, authorship and authenticity, cultural and historical customs are drawn out and communicated. Stories are recounted which are personal and intimate, exploring identity as a woman of Lebanese origin, my family ties and the understanding of sitting between two cultures. Although these stories evoke personal revelations and questioning of my own realities, I am adamant that they refer to issues that are universal. I use my art as a platform for expression in order to create an arena for discussion rather than an imposition of thought. If it ignites a spark of reflection in the viewer’s mind, then the work has succeeded. My current work focuses on the recycling of found and disposable objects. The pieces explore loss, migration and memory, with a particular focus on the Middle East, through the histories contained within aged and culturally specific objects. This idea of the development of a generational craft work that spans time at once explores hand-me-down skills, stories and community – and by extension, the intercultural nature of British society. Putting British society to one side, I would emphasise the intercultural nature of my own identity. When someone asks me where I’m from and I answer ‘London’, they often reply, “Yes, but where

3. The Stitch is Lost Unless the Thread is Knotted, 2008 Baby dresses and thread, Dimensions variable

Volume 104, Issue 3 are you really from?” It’s this word ‘really’ that baffles me. How much more real can I get? When I am in Lebanon I can say I am perfectly assimilated. I speak fluent Arabic and look Lebanese. I am familiar with the culture and country, yet I am socially excluded. Am I really entitled to Lebanese nationality, not having endured their struggle? It’s this sitting between two cultures that I embrace and try to demystify through art. I am very much a product of my environment; the challenge here is trying to understand what environment that is.

1. Peregrination, 2008, Shoes and thread, Dimensions variable 2. Birds in a book, 2008, Book and paper, Dimensions variable 3.

Clare Market Review 33

From top-left clockwise

Justice.JPG The Royal Courts of Justice just east of the London School of Economics. Behind the columns is an enclosed space that appears to have no apparent use, but for which there is â&#x20AC;&#x153;no trespassing.â&#x20AC;? PhoneBooth.JPG

LiverpoolStreet.JPG A red brick building just next to Liverpool Street station. Around the corner lies Artillery Lane that leads to the neighborhood where Jack the Ripper once prowled and massacred his victims.

Artist of the londonArtist schoolofofthe economics london school of economics:

ERIC CHOW

Volume 104, Issue 3

Where in London do you find most inspirational? St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s churchyard is where it usually starts for me.

What is in your secret address book of places to visit in London? The TARDIS if it ever happens to be in London.

Where in London do you most like to sit and why? The Ten Bells Pub or Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

London is a new city, crystallizing out the old.

What would you do as Mayor of London for the day? Make it pedestrian day; shut down all the streets, no cars, cabs or buses.

All artwork by Eric Chow

Vision

ision Impossible? is part of Thames Reach, a London-wide organisation that helps homeless men and women rebuild their lives. It is an award-winning arts project that exists to support emerging artistic talents. Artists that are homeless, ex-homeless or precariously housed require studio space, art materials, technical support and marketing to allow them opportunities to enter the mainstream arts world. Vision Impossible? provides these resources.

‘Femme Fatle’ by Jo Landau

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Here are thoughts and work from four artists helped by Vision Impossible?

Justine

Cal

If I was mayor for the day I would free up the empty properties for the many homeless. I would offer much cheaper transport as it seems that london has the most expensive system in Europe.

‘Fernando & Patricia’ by Justine Cal

Jo Landau

noitaripsni em sevig nodnoL ni tahW eht ot og ot ekil I semitemos , ta kool ,srewofl eht ta kool ,krap ekil yllaer I ,ytic eht ni sgnidliub eht .slanac eht dna meht ta gnikool

London makes me feel: depends, sometimes… great, lonely, depends innit. It’s expensive. If I were mayor for the day, I’d make sure there were more buses, I’d make the trains more efficient. And I’d put Air Conditioning on the Tube!

I would build cheap affordable social housing and give back public ownershi to all that has been privatised.

Volume 104, Issue 3 My favourite place to relax is my mum’s house, or Victoria Park.

London makes me feel very happy and confident. I came to London from Africa in 1968 when I was 4 years old, now it is my hometown. If I were mayor for a day, I’d make better jobs, more money, I’d talk to people, encourage others and encourage the arts - because it helps with stress levels. ‘Lady 1’ by Albert Dias

Albert Dias

Tony O’Brien

I’ve settled in London b/c it’s faster, it’s busy and my background - when I was in business I focused on London it’s the center of commerce; it’s where everything was happening. If I were mayor for a day, I’d look to improve transport. I would aim to serve every day people, I’d make travelling across London easier.

‘Rubbish’ by Tony O’Brien

For more information please go to www.visionimpossible.org. by Amanda Whittle, Arts & Community Development Coordinator at Vision Impossible?

IMPOSSIBLE? S

ome of our artists may have taken up art recently, and what can start out as perhaps a more therapeutic hobby, can actually turn into a blossoming artistic future. One of our artists, Jeff Hubbard, is an example of this. Jeff ’s digital art work has developed enormously. We are currently supporting Jeff with his first solo show at Clissold House Café, London, N16.

Clare Market Review

Volume 104, Issue 3 How has living in London influenced your artistic persuasions? There is a lot of variety in London.

Walking across town is like walking through villages that are completely different. My persuasion changes depending on what part of London I'm in. Where in London do you find most inspirational? I once went on a walk in the middle of the night, with a friend who was leaving London in the morning for good. He stopped in the middle of Waterloo Bridge, facing St Pauls, and said, "I don't mean to sound corny, but do you ever just feel so alive?" That memory inspires me and I associate that with Waterloo Bridge.

Artist of the london school of economics:

Judy fu

What would you do as Mayor of London for the day? I've told my friends before that I would institute "no trousers" day. I'm not sure how that would help anything but I'm confident everybody would have a better day.

Clare Market Review

Living in a E W r p o e s t ARE w

orld ?

megan jones

“For over 200 years, posters have been displayed in public places all over the world. Visually striking, they have been designed to attract the attention of passers-by, making us aware of a political viewpoint, enticing us to attend specific events, or encouraging us to purchase a product or service.” -Max Gallo Interested as I was, in the use of posters for propaganda and advertising, I was disappointed to discover that the Underground is no longer the platform for avant-garde poster art it once was. The walls of stations and platforms are now plastered with uninspiring drivel, aimed at luring us to the latest West End production, or enticing to buy cheaper car insurance. This apparent lack of creativity in advertisement is not limited to the sphere of public transport. At one time, posters were a vital public relations tool, used to gain support for war, to manipulate public opinion and to justify government policies. However, the age of the poster as the preferred method for government spin has long gone, and the internet and television are seen as the most effective means to engage with a disinterested and apathetic electorate. Purely textual posters have a long history, from advertising Shakespeare’s plays, to spreading government proclamations. However, the revolution in poster production came about with the development of new printing techniques, specifically the process of lithography, invented in 1796 by Alois Senefelder. Jules Chéret, considered the ‘father’ of advertisement placards, founded a small lithography office in Paris in 1866,where he created over 1100 advertisements, primarily for exhibitions, theatres and products. Cheret developed a new lithography technique which used

Volume 104, Issue 3

more vibrant colour and innovative typography, creating a more expressive style. This new type of poster, and its amenability to mass production in colour, transformed the thoroughfares of Europe’s cities into the “art galleries of the street.” Frank Pick was one of the first to see the potential of the poster as a means of advertising the Underground. Prior to this, it had been conceived solely as a means of raising revenue by charging other companies for poster space on stations. At the time progressive main-line railway companies were already using coloured lithographic posters as a means of publicity. Pick adopted the same techniques and adapted them to London, cultivating the notion that everything the city had to offer was available through travel by bus, tram or Underground; the lifeblood of the capital. Pick recognized the importance of presentation and the need to reorganize. The previous system was unattractive and ineffective, making it difficult for commuters to pick out basic information and even station names. Pick’s approach was always to entice prospective travellers indirectly. The posters rarely showed the method of travel, but rather focused on the destination. Once usage patterns changed, commuters became a captive market that did not need to be told about their everyday experience. The focus of Underground publicity shifted accordingly; the posters now encouraged commuters and their families to make extra journeys during off-peak periods such as evenings and weekends, when many of the Underground’s trains were lying idle. These posters highlighted the pleasures of London, such as museums, theatres, cinemas, shops, parks, and sporting events or simply the sights of London. Pick held that: “In advertising the Underground, London itself is advertised. Millions of people through the year now look to the Underground announcements to decide how they shall travel and what place of amusement or country excursion they should choose. Londoners know their way about better and enjoy their London far more since the Underground began to address them by posters.” In commissioning work, Pick would consider unknown and established artists alike, often experimenting with young artists recommended to him through art schools. Pick believed that, “there is room in posters for all styles. They are the most eclectic form of art. It is possible to move from the most literal representation to the wildest impressionism as long as the subject remains understandable to the man in the street.” However, Pick always argued that advertising which was slightly above people’s heads was preferable to a descent to the lowest common denominator. A good poster could be both inspirational and aspirational. During 1920s and 1930s Underground posters became more than a medium for promoting transport services. The Underground station effectively became a ven-

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ue for constantly changing exhibitions of modern art. Many artists commissioned by the Underground were influenced by avant-garde European art movements of the early 20th century, and the posters became popular commercial interpretations of these styles. Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism all reached the general public in Britain via Underground posters. The simplification of images into dramatic, geometric compositions was particularly appropriate to the medium and stimulated an exciting new creative approach by artists. Whether the Underground genuinely influenced popular artistic taste through its posters is debatable, but there are numerous claims to this affect. The art critic Anthony Blunt, commenting on Kauffer’s work in 1935, suggested that “apart from producing admirable posters, McKnight Kauffer has rendered another important service to modern art. By using the methods of the more advanced schools, and by putting them before the men in the street in such a way as to catch them off their guard, so that they are lured into liking the poster before they realise that it is just the kind of thing which they loathe in the exhibition gallery.” During the First World War, Underground posters were used for propaganda as well as advertisement. During the early stage of the war, travel advertisements continued to promote pleasure trips as if nothing had changed. These were displayed alongside sombre army recruitment posters. As the war dragged on, it was no longer considered appropriate to encourage leisure travel, but the romantic appeal of Britain’s countryside was used in posters sent out by the Underground to troops overseas as ‘reminders of home.’ The Second World War had a much more immediate effect on the Underground; unnecessary travel was discouraged and publicity posters ceased only a few months after the outbreak of war. The main role for pictorial posters was now to provide information and, increasingly, to boost the morale of passengers and staff. A special series of posters was commissioned to commemorate the everyday heroism of civilian workers in wartime. The sitters for these images were all members of London Transport’s staff. Following the end of the Second World War, Pick’s tradition of commissioning poster art was revived on a reduced scale. However, the new campaign began to lose momentum in the 1950s: the posters seemed limited in scope, representing an apparent lack of talented young graphic artists. The poster’s inability to stem the decline in passenger numbers was taken as a sign of its outdated usefulness. During the 1960s and 1970s art poster publicity was regarded as an irrelevant luxury. Commissions to artists were dramatically cut as publicity posters were contracted out to agencies that tended to use photographic images rather than

Volume 104, Issue 3

artwork and could not always match the innovation and variety of the previous era. In 1986 Dr Henry Fitzhugh, Marketing and Development Director of the Underground, revived direct commissions to artists. However, this poster campaign differed from earlier campaigns in that it was not intended either as advertising or as publicity. Rather, the ‘Art on the Underground’ scheme was intended to display newly commissioned fine art in poster form, and was funded separately from the Underground’s main advertising and publicity campaigns. It was conceived as a means of corporate art sponsorship, whereby the Underground would commission original works of art and reproduce them as posters. The cost of this was no more than would be required to create advertising ‘fillers’ from other sources, and it was primarily a way of filling unsold space. Yet Fitzhugh was adamant that he was not simply using posters as decorative wallpaper for tube stations. His stated intention was to use the scheme “to promote art, especially fine art, and its appreciation among our customers, and to promote young artists.”

“.. fine art in poster form.. ” Fitzhugh left the Underground in the early 1990’s, and the art scheme was reviewed because ‘Art on the Underground’ was no longer needed to fill unsold poster space. London Transport Advertising was privatized and its new owners started selling poster space far more aggressively. Research showed, however, that the art poster scheme remained popular with the Underground’s customers, who appreciated attractive images that were not aimed at ‘hard sell’ advertising and whose messages could be easily understood. This was the conclusion that Frank Pick had reached more than 60 years earlier, and it was used to argue the case for the art scheme, though with closer links to specifically targeted marketing campaigns. There is no reason why the walls of tube stations across London cannot be reclaimed from the grasp of soulless advertising, and restored to their potential as art spaces for the masses. To make this a reality, art students must be encouraged to see poster art as a valid, worthwhile art form, rather than the poorer brother of art exhibited in galleries. Art students with their new ideas and fresh perspectives can rejuvenate an art form that has become stale and lifeless. Poster art could give commuters an insight into emerging art movements, rather than relying on clichéd scenes and lazy, listless images. After all, art is something to be enjoyed by all, not solely within the stuffy confines of an art gallery, which many people do not enter from one year to the next. High quality art must be accessible to all, and what better platform than the Underground?

Clare Market Review 43

The silence that stood between two bodies took an eternity to settle. When it settled, it settled like snow. I will carry my silence this winter, and maybe when it gets too heavy, we can stop, and rest for a while. It is a very long season.

We use this quiet nicely. Short days entail choosing your words carefully, speaking less, listening more, cleaning mirrors and unclogging the sinks. We sit avoiding the cold, drinking herbal tea and watching steam rise from our mugs. We take long baths, do the laundry, and clutter our bed-stand with pills and medicine bottles. We brush snow from our shoulders, and learn to breath in spite of the cold, and each other.

Volume 104, Issue 3

Winter

a poem by Judith Jacob

In the winter, we begin to learn what is simple and necessary; Antihistamines, hot soups, staying warm in the house. We allow winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silence to drift down and gather like frost on our floors. I think about moving often, abandoning our home while the earth stays frozen. To leave in the winter is unnatural. Movement breaks its stillness and hold, an impossible infidelity to the past, to others, to old notions of oneself. Leaving someone in the snow shatters the heavy silences carried over long months, breaking the spell to end all spells. It is a necessary betrayal, a declaration that things can be not only different but better, as we open our front doors and step out into spring.

Clare Market Review

contributors Slawek Kozdras, Zhou Lei, Filippo Dionigi, Wee Keat Cheoh, Sean Deel Kyle Taylor, Aya Haidar, Eric Chow, Judy Fu, Judith Jacob and Megan Jones are all

students at the LSE Amanda Whittle

is the Arts & Community Development Coordinator at Vision Impossible?

Cynthia Fong

studies Fashion Design with Knitwear at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.

Caroline Ward

is a seasoned Clare contributor. Tony Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien, Justine Cal, Jo Landau and Albert Dias are all

artists at Vision Impossible?

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