What Does Balfron Tower Mean to You?
2015
iPad 2, iPhone 4 & 5s & Nikon D200
This film is not currently available online.
If only Balfron Tower could talk, if only we could see (extract).
“Time lapses. Remembrances. Lives once fixed; now in transit. Different places. Other spaces.
If only Balfron Tower could talk.
Each wall, window, walkway. Every conduit, fixture, fitting, lock. The underground garages. The lifts. The noticeboards. Dispossessed.
The views. People’s views. Displaced.
If only we could see.
No filming. No photography.
Fixed perspectives. Fixed outlooks.
All the while, the City creeps nearer. Beacons. Warning signs. Shiny neoliberal lights. Precursors of forthcoming “redevelopment”. Glass fronted. Flimsy giants. Harbingers of impending gentrification. They are coming. They will come. They will erase generations, feast on the past, wipe clean past lives, past happiness, past hardships. Brutal.
Call in the artists, the property guardians, dark soundtracks, bleak CGI mock ups trumpeting “We’re coming home, baby!”
Not yet. Just Sitex doors. Left possessions tipped in skips. Locks. For now…”
Read the full review by Stephen Pritchard, Colouring in Culture
https://colouringinculture.org/blog/ifonlybalfrontowercouldspeak/
Film included in Living with Buildings, Wellcome Collection
https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/W7TaXxAAACwA0c26