The Long Road

'and i wished for so long.... cannot stay...'

House of Dreams

City Lights

time lapse/// places upon places

----drifting through /million mask march

Living London Exhibition

 

Another dream. Another trance.

-----///you could be happy- i hope you are

Living London Private View

To mark the official launch of my Living London project, I'm having a photographic exhibition in late October. The exhibition will share some of the photographs, poetry and hidden London gems that feature in my project. For those of you who have been following this blog and my explorations for the last 8 years, it would be amazing to see you at the exhibition and to celebrate London together- it's incredible places, people and stories!

RSVP to Private View here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/living-london-private-view-tickets-18723067198

Letter to Self

I came across this beautiful letter to self written by an inmate at wormwood scrubs prison...

We have not spoken in a while... So long I barely know you. Now confined in these four walls you'd think I'd be forced to listen, but sometimes those closest to our hearts receive the least of our attention, so now with these words I hope that maybe we can have some time to say, I know I did you wrong. And I'm sorry.

yours have always been the hardest words to digest your praise is often bland and unseasoned, your scorn thick, coarse and stodgy, and often with no mind paid to my delicate tongue ad sensitive palate. THESE WORDS ARE NOT weapons, though they may cut you. They are not tools, though I hope to build you with them. And my tongue is not silver, though it may seek to buy you favour in return for good fortune when I say, I know i did you wrong, and I'm sorry

You barely turn to face me anymore. I loved your fickle dreams, I fanned your selfish fires and catered to your wanton needs, spent a lifetime raising you up in delusion, a king of a lonely kingdom, God of an empty space. Have I built you a lonely cell to rule over? Did we find ourselves a dark corner to rock in, back and forth for eternity shrouded by illusions of unachievable utopia- do we live there now?

Alone in this place I need you now more than ever but find I 'm more distant than I've known, and before I seek the forgiveness of others i'll seek the redemption of the only one who truly knows me and say, i know i did you wrong, and I'm sorry

In this room away from the civilised world where they make of great men, beasts and cattle, and though you never listened to a single word I said, it's time we had a simple conversation, for all the quick replies that seem to rattle round my head, all the good and bad advice and mysteries unravelled and the crumbling institution of myself, I want you just to know that I recognise your pain, and I've robbed you of your health

I know I did you wrong, 
Sincerly

runnin', still runnin'

Phoenix Garden

Neals Yard

a beating heart

Camberwell Bus Garage

Grays Antiques and the Lost River Tyburn

Kings College, Chapel

dream within a dream within a dream

SOUL /searching>

I've been spending a lot of time alone lately, wandering around, finding new places, lakes, and mosques, churches and crypts and libraries, I been appreciating small details, talking to strangers, thinking through things, trying to figure stuff out, trying to forget and remember stuff, a lot of stuff.... I don't know... 

I have this strange feeling I won't be living london much longer, (am not sure if that's living london the project or living london in this city, or my general scatty lifestyle, I don't know....) but trying to focus on the present..... because that's all we have. that is ALL we have: nothing more, and I keep telling myself sy, don't sweat the small stuff. shit, it's ALL small stuff. Well most of it. And the present is yours to make the best out of, I'd like to try to make the best out of now///- 

St Leonard's Church and Crypt

South Bank Mosaics- a secret world

Luke makes mosaics :-) 

here's malcolm X and malala

 

....and the priest showed me the way, he led me to a  staircase and said, just follow the mosaics, and so I said thank and I travelled down the stairs and through the labyrinthine passages of the crypt of St John’s church, passing so many mosaics as I went, mosaics depicting Malcolm X and Malala, and Che Guevara, until I finally reached a room on which there was a paper stuck to the door, it read ‘Southbank Mosaics’ and so I knocked on the door and stuck my head in. Inside there were a handful of dissimilar looking people making mosaics. I asked if Paula was about, but she wasn’t, and I said I just wanted to have a look really, and a kind young apprentice named Luke offered to show me around...

...he showed me around the pottery workshop, and told me stories of young offenders creating the most interesting mosaics, and he told me about the self-professed baroness, and that they would all come together to make mosaics, people of all ages and backgrounds and histories, all creating and I told him a mosaic artist I once knew said for her it was all about making something beautiful out of the broken, he agreed and told me 300 people created the Queenhithe mosaic together, but because of cuts to funding, things were slowing down...

...and he said one of the Blake mosaics had been stolen, a white woman in a blue dress, and so instead of replicating it they decided to change it up a bit, and made the woman asian instead.... and we talked about mudlarking too, and the connection between mudlarking and mosaics, and I told him about the artist I had just met in Greenwich who would make glass fish from pieces of glass she found in the river.... and how she had an exhibition of things she had collected and created and found, and then after a while I left, and later I found myself by some Charlie Chaplin mosaics created by those in the crypt, on an anonymous road- those ethereal connections... each proceeding another....

what remains-

heartbreak hotel-

SOMEPLACE SOMEWHERE< SOMEPLACE, NOWHERE

Crossness Pumping Station

Braved heavy rain, wild horses, ditches, stinging nettles and motocycle gangs with my old friend Sarayu to get to crossness, it was so worth it. 

An (Other) Peckham

 

those old cemeteries

BLUE, BLUE BLUE