Bradford screenings – Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

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As part of the Bradford International Film Festival, Cineworld at the Bradford Leisure Exchange will be hosting two screenings of the new Spectacle documentary, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo on the 26th and 27th of March.

The March 26th viewing will also host a panel discussion of the project with filmmakers Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, along with former detainees Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes following the screening.

Outside the Law offers a powerful and personal insight into the claims that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and how those detained as “illegal enemy combatants” were given no chance to defend themselves and, even worse, given no rights whatsoever.

Information and tickets are available online as are DVD purchases

Click Guantánamo for more blogs or visit our Guantánamo project pages for more information and videos.

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Silwood Video Group: Workshop Update

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Class X Silwood 05-09-05

The Silwood Video Group continued this week as workshops were held on Tuesday in the Silverlock Centre and around the estate. We were able to conduct our usual sound and video workshops, taking new location shots around Silwood and engaging with residents curious about our work. This was followed by a screening in the Silverlock centre from 6 to 8, and preparations were discussed for a joint celebration of the culmination of the Silwood project and Spectacle’s eleventh anniversary of filming on the estate. Watch this space!

This week’s workshops will take place as per usual on Tuesday 22nd March, with location filming around the estate from 4.00 to 6.00 and screenings from 6.30 to 8.00 PM at the Silverlock Centre. Newcomers are welcome, and we look forward to seeing you there

14 Reasons for Opposing the Sochi 2014 Olympics

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The Sochi Olympics of 2014 will be the 150th commemorative year of the Circassian Genocide. Choosing Sochi as the site of the Winter Olympics, in such an auspicious year for the Russians, represents the perpetual celebration of Imperial Russia’s oppression and systematic murder of the Circassian People. Building the Olympic Village over the mass graves of the victims symbolizes the virtual erasing of this atrocity! 

14 Reasons for Opposing Sochi 2014

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See our Olympics project pages for more information and videos.
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.

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SVG: Workshop Update

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The Silwood Video Group workshops continued this week, with two days on the estate. On Monday, due to good weather, we were able to move around on the estate doing location shots and photography, as well as engaging curious residents and talking to them about our activities. Later in the afternoon, we organised an interview shoot with a long-term resident. We also held our weekly screening and workshops at the Silverlock Centre on Tuesday from 6pm-8pm. We discussed old maps of the Silwood and Rotherhithe area brought along by one of the residents, which were photographed for documentation, and held camera and sound operating practice workshops.

Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.

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SVG: Progress Update

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Silwood Video Group 18-02-09

The weekly Silwood Video Group sessions have been continuing down on the estate and at the Silverlock Centre. We have had some very successful shoots and interviews with local residents, who have helped to document life on the estate by explaining their memories of their time there, how the community has changed, and what advice they would give to younger/ newer residents. The project has so far been well-received by those living on and around the estate, and there is a keen interest being shown in discovering how the camera works, operating sound equipment, interviewing others and listening to each others histories.

As ever, the group would like to encourage new members to join – all are welcome to take part!

Tuesdays, 6.30pm – 8pm

Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.

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An Urban media Practice: documentation, agitation, participation

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Mark Saunders lecturing on the Urban Practices course at UCL:

An Urban media Practice: documentation, agitation, participation

8th February 3pm in Room 114, 26 Bedford Way, Department of Geography, UCL

Drawing on 30 years experience of independent and community based media practice in London, Brussels and Rostock Mark Saunders will describe the political and technological development of Spectacle’s practice and use of media in urban struggles for social justice in the built environment.

This will include, Despite TV, an innovative video co-operative in East London (1981-94), Jako Co-operative and the making of The Truth Lies in Rostock (90-98) establishing resident video groups in gentrifying Brussels (2000-2009) and long term video workshops on “regenerated” estates Silwood in Rotherhithe (10 years) and Marsh Farm Luton (15 years) and recent work on the London Olympics and Battersea Power Station.

Key Readings:

Olympics

Olympic project pages

Olympic blog

Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station project

Battersea Power Station blog

Suggested further readings:

Surviving Participation Fatigue< Erased Social Geography

Video in the City: Possibilities for Transformation in the Urban Space

Advocacy, Participation and Non Governmental Organisations in planning : A report and video on Spectacle’s APaNGO work

Silwood Video Group Workshops: Update

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We had our first workshop with the Silwood Video Group on Tuesday, which allowed us to get a lot of new footage and more location shots to add to our ever-expanding archive. We are looking forward to getting the project up and running, with lots of positive contributions by residents. We are lining up interviews with pensioners and schoolkids alike, trying to get to the root of the changing nature of life on the estate.

Get involved!

Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.

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Silwood Video Group – New Workshops

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Spectacle will be starting a new series of inter-generational workshops on the Silwood Estate in South-East London every Tuesday from 1st of February. Documenting the lives’ of old and young residents alike, it is an attempt at capturing oral histories and in the same process teaching people ow to use camera equipment to record their own stories. We will be filming on location from 2pm-3pm on the Estate, and from 3pm til 6pm, we will be based at the Silverlock Centre on Warndon Street (opposite Tissington Court) for a more formal workshop.

All welcome!

Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.

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Olympics 2012: Legacy, Land Grabs and Liberties

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Olympics 2012: Legacy, Land Grabs and Liberties

Mark Saunders presentation at HafenCity Universität Hamburg department of Urban Design.

Thursday 13 Jan 2011. 7.30

In the Fog of Games the first casualty is the truth.  The Olympics, like other sporting spectaculars, are only brief and transitory television events that disguise and justify Mega projects of vast urban restructuring that permanently distort our cities for the benefit of a few business interests . The common features of these Mega projects are unprecedented land grabs, the peddling of myths of “regeneration”  and the “legacy” benefits for the host community, the sweeping away of democratic structures and planning restraints, the transfer of public money into private hands and “information management” to hid truths and silence critics.

Mark Saunders will be showing some “work in progress” extracts from Spectacle’s film on the London Olympics.

Zeit:
Donnerstag, 13. Januar 2011
19.00 Uhr

Ort:
HafenCity Universität Hamburg
Averhoffstraße 38
Erdgeschoss, Raum 16 b

Eine Veranstaltung im Rahmen der UD-Vortragsreihe “Feste feiern. Kollektivierungen urbaner Praxis”

For more details and maps

Click London Olympics for more blogs
See our Olympics project pages for more information and videos.
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.

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Battersea Power Station history from the 30s to 1983

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The Vauxhall Society reprints an extract from  ‘Battersea Power Station – 50 Years of Service – A Short History’ first published by CEGB Public Relations Branch in 1983.

The Vauxhall Society is the civic consultative group covering the London parliamentary constituency of Vauxhall, which extends from north of Waterloo to Brixton, Clapham, and Stockwell and Vauxhall, as well as the neighbouring districts of Southwark and Wandsworth.

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For more history of the power station click here
See our Battersea Power Station project pages for more information and videos.
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.

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