What Does Balfron Tower Mean to You?
2015
iPad 2, iPhone 4 & 5s & Nikon D200
DUE TO ABUSE AND THEFT BY ACADEMICS LIKE ANNA MINTON AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON AND PLAGIARISM FROM MEIKA SMILES OF THE DAILY EXPRESS AND REACH PLC, THIS FILM HAS NOW BEEN WITHDRAWN. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SCREEN THE FILM, QUALIFIED APPLICANTS SHOULD GET IN TOUCH VIA THE CONTACT BUTTON REQUESTING PERMISSION.
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