Real Estates

From 18 February to 28 March 2015 Real Estates was a project coordinated by art collective Fugitive Images opening at PEER as a social, discursive and imaginative space around issues of housing and spatial justice in East London through a constantly changing series of exhibitions, screenings, discussions, readings and workshops. ‘This project arrives at the end of a seven-year series of collaborative works with our neighbours of the Haggerston Estate. Our work came from within the community, with whom we cultivated other spaces to gather, share and campaign before the estate was demolished. Our neighbourhoods and communities are facing even greater threats from new developments and policies that separate and stratify us. But there are also many that have resisted these forces. In these six-weeks we invite in other communities, speakers and artists related to the housing crisis in London. The project will act as a platform for campaign groups and engaged makers to bring their important work into a different space, to share with us a glimpse of their own long-term projects on key sites. The gallery will host works that connect us, that illuminate, that bring pain to the surface, that inspire tenderness, that reject terrifying social injustices and restore ethical imperatives. The events programme brings together discussions around eviction, displacement and homelessness and their expression through an art that is committed to being made public and shared. This is not for profit, there nothing for sale and all events will be free.’ Fugitive Images Fugitive Images are Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts, a collaborative cultural activist producing agency, with a particular interest in, and commitment to, the social organisation of urban space. The exhibition was an opportunity to extend this collaboration to other communities, campaigners and artists who have made it their life’s work to make visible the impacts of eviction, displacement and homelessness on everyday lives. These rooms hosted works and events that connect us, that illuminate, that bring pain to the surface, that inspire tenderness, that voice solidarity. Together we hope to develop a deeper understanding and find strategies to resist terrifying social injustices and restore ethical imperatives. Exhibiting work from: Fugitive Images (Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts), Tom Hunter, James Mackinnon, Bekki Perriman, Moyra Peralta, Cardboard Citizens, DIG Collective (William Bock, Alberto Duman, Sophie Mason and Mark Morgan), Focus E15 Campaign, Smart Urhoife, UEL Unit 10. Contributions from: Owen Jones, Hackney Digs, Pau Faus, Pau Faus, Silvia Gonzáles-Laá, Xavi Andreu, Aysen Denis, John Smith, Jane Rendell, Beverley Robinson, Aysen Dennis, Richard Baxter, Caterina Sartori, Brandon LaBelle, John Rogers, Jeremy Till, Barry Watts, Ken Loach, Kerry Simmons, Dave Sinclair, Lesley Woodburn, Sarah Kwei, Dave Smith, Paul Heron, Felicity Downing, Adrian Jackson, Marcia Farquhar, David Madden, Lisa McKenzie, Tom Gann, Alberto Duman, Louise Sayarer, Eva Vikstrom, Tom Cordell, Kate Macintosh, Paul Watt, Melissa Butcher, Jon Fitzmaurice, Fuel Poverty Action, Tawanda Nyabango, Jasmin Parsons, Geraldine Dening, Alison Balance, Patrick Langley, Morgan Quaintance, Rab Harling, Sue Lukes, Advisory Service for Squatters, Green and Black Cross, Legal Defence and Monitoring Group, Sweets Way Estate, HASL, Unite Communities, Our West Hendon, Guinness, Skills Network, Radial Housing Network, Dorothy Allan-Pickard, Rastko Novakovic, Steven Ball, Kate Belgrave, Jason Parkinson, Julian Samboma, LCAP, Sibyl Trigg, John Murray, Elisabeth Blanchet, Jane Hearn, Andre Anderson, Raze, Predz UK, Kayden Bell, Jade Snyper, Nathaniel Telemaque, Municipal Dreams, Guillaume Meigneux, Stephen Watts, Lorna Forrester, Elam Forrester, Alison Marchant, Gillian McIver, Emer Mary Morris, Cathy Ward, Nela Milic. --- Programme overview Each week PEER will host a rolling exhibition programme, events and screenings featuring a number of strands. from 7pm – Openings and socials 2-5pm – Class Room, workshops and lectures for students and the public from 6.30pm – Focus, film screenings, talks, readings and actions from 6.30pm – Film screenings 2-5pm – Homeworks – Public talks from key figures/campaigns on housing All of the events are FREE, but it is strongly advised to arrive at least 10 minutes prior to the start time as space is limited and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis. Weekly Programme: 18 February 7pm, Owen Jones, author, campaigner and Guardian columnist will launch the Real Estates project. Week One 18 to 21 February This week expands on the Estate project by Fugitive Images, featuring material generated from their long-term engage- ment on the Haggerston Estate in collaboration with residents and local practitioners. Key events include an evening with filmmaker John Smith including screenings of Hackney Marshes and Blight, UEL Unit 10 students will hold a seminar on their design and engagement with the Nightingale Estate and talks from the information, support and campaign group Hackney Digs. Week Two 25 to 28 February This week features a large-scale model of the Holly Street Estate (demolished in 2001), a photographic sculpture concieved and designed by artists James Mackinnon and Tom Hunter. Hunter will also exhibiting photographs of Holly Street residents (1997) and his film A Palace for Us (2010). Events include workshops with sound artist Brandon LaBelle and architectural theoretician Jane Rendell, and a talk by architect and Head of Central Saint Martins, Jeremy Till. Film- maker and writer John Rogers (Trews Reports/Drift Report) surveys his ongoing series of videos highlighting housing cam- paigns around London including the New Era Estate, West Hendon, and Save Soho. Week Three 4 to 7 March This week is themed around homelessness. Bekki Perriman’s The Doorways Project explores homeless culture through photography and sound, inviting visitors to pay attention to the intimate, sometimes humorous, often disturbing and mostly ignored stories of homeless people. This will be accompanied by photographs by Moyra Peralta and work from Cardboard Citizens which has been making theatre with homeless people for over 20 years, for homeless and non-home- less audiences. Cardboard Citizens is informed and inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, using the arts to provoke debate and rehearse actions. Events include a screening of Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home and talks by performance artist Marcia Farquhar and campaigners Lesley Woodburn and Barry Watt. Week Four 11 to 14 March This week is curated by DIG Collective, formed of William Bock, Alberto Duman, Sophie Mason and Mark Morgan, who came together to interrogate demolition and redevelopment, ritual and nature in Hackney Central. Week Five 18 to 21 March This week is run by Focus E15 Campaign, continuing to build their movement that demands SOCIAL HOUSING, NOT SOCIAL CLEANSING. The week will be a melting pot of ideas and events, exhibiting visual materials and films about their campaign, hosting an eviction resistance workshop, open mic night, discussions and socials. Week Six 25 to 28 March The final week will feature an expanded enquiry from Fugitive Images, including politics and high fashion expressed in the Ghana Must Go bags made by Estate fashion designer Smart Urhiofe. Events include a panel discussion by and on Women, Home and Activism with Lorna & Elam Forrester, Gillian McIver, Lesley Woodburn, Emer Mary Morris, Alison Marchant, Cathy Ward,Aysen Dennis, Nela Milic, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman; a screening of Guillaume Meigneux’s HLM – (Slightly Modfied Housing); readings from poet Stephen Watts; and an evening with the Authors of the Estate project contributors – Andre Anderson, Raze, Predz UK, Kayden Bell, Jade Snyper, Nathaniel Telemaque. PEER, LUX, Restless Futures, CSM. Fugitive Images are Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts, a collaborative cultural activist producing agency, with a particular interest in, and commitment to, the social organisation of urban space

Civil Rites

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. - Simone Weil Civil Rites is a cine-poem, taking as a starting point Martin Luther King’s 1967 speech, given on receipt of his honorary doctorate from the University of Newcastle. It explores how the core themes of poverty, racism and war continue to haunt our lives. The film visits key locations in the city’s history of civil resistance. Some have been buried beneath car parks and shopping malls. Others remain on busy streets. Some are publicly marked, others anonymous. Each location is filmed in a single fixed shot, and the whole sequence moves from dawn to dusk across the city. The film listens to the voices from more than two dozen interviews conducted with older and recently arrived residents, housed and un-housed, community organisers, passers-by, educators and others as they think through their responses to these themes. The film locates these voices in dialogue with key sites of resistance from across the Tyneside region and across the centuries. It seeks to learn what has changed (or not) in the lives of people in Newcastle today. The title plays on the sonic relationship between ‘rights’ in a civil and social sense, and the rituals that inform behaviour. The use of ‘rites’ seeks to encourage us to think about the repeated actions of history, both in terms of those imposed on us and the interactions of belonging, alliances, kindness and co-existence that allow the marginalised and oppressed to endure and occasionally to thrive. 'The recovery of overlooked and marginalised histories is central to understanding the possibilities in the present for future facing action. ... It is a work that is never fnished, where the process of being itself makes meaning, moment by living moment'. (Gareth Evans, Whistable Biennial, 2018) Thank you Radical Tyneside and Prof Brian Ward. Distributed by LUX --- ADDITIONAL content and events TYNESIDE CINEMA GALLERY (December 7th 2016 - January 22nd 2017) As part of the Civil Rites exhibition, I included a display of Demonstration Posters from the 1970s and 1980s, loaned to us from the collection of Penny Remfry, an activist in the women's liberation movement at the time. The display also includes the "Roots and Bootstraps" game from the 1980s. This was developed as part of a series of games to help working class people to recognise that their place in society was to with how society was structured not personal failure. The game has been loaned to us by Feminist and Anti-racist activist Pat Garrett and Jackie Collins. There was also a collection of blank protest signs which we encouraged visitors to write your thoughts and feelings on Civil Rites, the display and the themes of poverty, racism and war. One of my concerns was also how to make the his/ and herstories visible in practice, and this lead to a guided walk by activists Pat Garrett and Rosie Lewis, who facilitated a guided walk around Newcastle city centre activist hotspots over the last 40 years on Saturday 9 December. The walk introduced participants to a people’s history of the city, the lesser-known stories of revolution and resistance that have gone undocumented, giving a fascinating insight into the past will hopefully inspiring and connecting those involved or interested in the history of social justice activism in Newcastle. This event was organised and supported by the Angelou Centre as part of the exhibition. To listen to a recording of the event, please see link below. --- The Civil Rites Preview featured a panel discussion with artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Chandi Chopra, Pat Garrett, Rosie Lewis, Gailen Manuel, Roweena Russell and Paul Barry, with Chair Theresa Easton. Speaker Biographies Theresa Easton has been a council tenant in Newcastle for 17 years and helped form Millfield Tenants and Residents Association in Newburn. Theresa has been an active campaigner with the North East Peoples Assembly, a broad united campaign group, against austerity. Theresa is a trade union member and one of the founders of Artists’ Union England, a trade union for visual, applied and, socially engaged artists. Easton works as a printmaker & bookmaker in the Ouseburn Valley. She is currently working on a commission with Senate House Library, University London, “Queer between the covers: literature as a frame and filter of gay identities”. Chandni Chopra is criminal defence and family law solicitor who is a firm advocate of human rights, rights of refugees and anti-public sector cuts. Chandni is a longstanding member of Newcastle’s Palestinian Solidarity campaign, a group called north east Solidarity with Rohingya refugees and currently works for a charity called antisocialbehaviour.org supporting victims of crime and hate crime. Pat Garrett a retired psychotherapist who is currently the north east coordinator for the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), one of the lead UK organisations in a European funded project to use human rights as the focus for Esol training in Sweden Germany, Greece. Portugal and the U.K. Pat is also currently on the board of trustees at The Angelou Black Women's Centre in the west end of Newcastle with a primary role around supporting the counselling service. Rosie Lewis co-ordinates the Violence Against Women and Girls Services and is Deputy Director is Deputy Director of the Angelou Centre, a black and minority women’s centre based in Newcastle. Rosie has an extensive background in advocacy work with women seeking asylum and vulnerable children and young people having worked in both strategic and frontline roles in the domestic abuse sector. Rosie is also an experienced fundraiser and has been involved in social justice and feminist activism for over 20 years. Rosie is currently working toward her PhD at Durham University, researching feminist black and working class lesbian U.S. literature from the late Twentieth Century and developing her theoretical work around Biomythography. Gailen Manuel is a freelance photographer who also works for the Side Gallery as well as teaching part time free adult courses in photography. Gailen used to be a squatter during the 80s in London and has been on many demonstrations, actively encouraging others to use their voice in the hope of helping the world to change for the better. Gailen has worked in music and photography and at Tyneside Cinema. Roweena Russell grew up in a working class family in the south of Ireland. She began activism in the HIV/AIDS, drug and alcohol field in Dublin in 1995. She continues to work in this field today. In 1999 Roweena joined the board of the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO). She chaired the organisation from 2000 - 2002. Roweena studied sociology and social police at Trinity College Dublin. Roweena enjoys photographer, radio broadcasting and working with groups to understand how creativity as an activist tool can change communities. Paul Barry was born Paul Najid Al Rahman Barry to an English mother and Indian father. Paul held many positions working for the Home Office, regional arts councils and regional councils over the 70s and 80s, before becoming a Labour Councillor for Chesterfield from 1987-2003, eventually becoming Mayor from 2002-2003. Paul also played lead guitar in Electric Silver Dancer, bass guitar for Steam Coffin and lead guitar for Axis 1971-81. He also danced in contemporary ballet at Morden Tower and established Fairkytes Contemporary Dance Unit. Eastside Projects This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X (6th Oct - 22nd Dec 2018

Common Ground

Andrea Luka Zimmerman's first UK solo exhibition + curated events Common Ground catalogue entry: The work of Andrea Luka Zimmerman explores the impact of globalisation, power structures, militarism and denied histories. Common Ground, Zimmerman’s first UK solo exhibition, celebrates strategies of social and cultural resistance and proposes new ways of living together in the face of a threatened idea of the ‘common good'. Central to the exhibition, Zimmerman’s essay film Estate, a Reverie (2015) tracks the long drawn out closure of the Haggerston Estate in East London and the utopian promise of social housing it once offered. Filmed over seven years, Estate, a Reverie reveals the spirited everyday humanity and resilience of residents who, in circumstances like these, are habitually overlooked by media representations and wider social responses. The film portrays the complex relationships between people and the conditions in which they find themselves; asking how we might resist stereotypes of class, gender, ability, disability and geography. The themes of Estate, a Reverie resonate in further films, images, documents and events brought together for Common Ground. Taskafa - Stories of the Street (2013), is a film about survival and co-existence told through the lives of the street dogs of Istanbul and the citizens who care for them. It is voiced by the late writer and storyteller John Berger from his own novel King: A Street Story (1988). Zimmerman’s Merzschmerz (2014) is a series of short videos in which children retell (from memory) fairy tales written by the German artist Kurt Schwitters to an adult neighbour or friend. These short scenes draw attention to the process of remembering and forgetting – as well as addition and subtraction – that is essential to the handing on of stories from one person to another. They are tender portraits which show the role of a listener to be as important as that of a narrator in the telling of a tale. Common Ground provides an environment for open discussion, research and debate about the issues at the heart of these films and the other work in the exhibition. A series of talks, discussions, readings and screenings are organised over three weekends during the exhibition. There is a library area within the gallery with books and archival material related to the projects, where visitors are welcome to sit and look, listen or read. --- ADDITIONAL EVENTS: (Un) Common Saturday 29 April 2017, 2–5pm Andrea Luka Zimmerman hosts a drop in event with collaborators on her film Estate, a Reverie; David Roberts, Elam Forrester and Lorna Forrester. Elam Forrester Born in London, Elam Forrester is a young filmmaker and photographer who has worked on a number of film projects and exhibitions both in the UK and in Central America, focusing on social issues such as housing, London’s vanishing markets, issues affecting young Londoners and Women's Rights in El Salvador. In 2015 she produced her own film and photographic exhibition called Stories of El Salvador, which included her short films and photographs that she made while volunteering there. Elam is also a graduate of University of the Arts, London College of Communication. Lorna Forrester Lorna was born in Jamaica, and came to Bristol in the late 70s to join her family. After leaving school she moved to London where she's lived ever since and now works in Education. She lived on Haggerston Estate for nearly 20 years until its demolition. Discussion: Common Wealth Saturday 20 May 2017, 12–5pm This afternoon open discussion about housing and redevelopment addresses how these issues affect people in and around Bristol today. Andrea Luka Zimmerman invites guest campaigners, activists and others who are involved in related projects or research to take part. Before this event at Spike Island, join us at Knowle West Media Centre at 10am for a local walking tour and introduction to their project We can make…homes, exploring how communities can lead and influence the development of housing in their area. This is also an opportunity to see the exhibition We can make…, which includes work by artists Caitlin Shepherd and Charlotte Biszewski made with Knowle West residents. Caitlin and Charlotte are joining the afternoon discussion at Spike Island. This local walking tour is led by Melissa Mean, Head of Arts Programme at KWMC. In Common Saturday 17 June 2017, 2–8pm Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Google + Join us to celebrate the work of John Berger, a prolific writer of powerful art criticism, poetry and fiction. This event combines talks, screenings and an audio recording of Berger reading Andrey Platonov’s short story A Sparrow’s Journey, heard by candlelight

Prisoner of War

This essay is a commissioned interview with Andrea Luka Zimmerman about her film Prisoner of War (2016). Zimmerman has made films in the USA and Indonesia exploring the impact of globalisation and marginalised histories. Her essay-film Prisoner of War (2016) explores US militarism and foreign policy through a character study of Bo Gritz, the most decorated Green Beret of the Vietnam War and a former Special Forces Commander in Latin America. This essay was commissioned by 'How to work together' to accompany the event 'Sharna Pax: How to work together' at Chisenhale Gallery, London, 1st December 2015. The event included screenings and discussion on films by Eva Marie Rødbro, Andrea Luka Zimmerman (Prisoner of War (excerpt), 2016, 10 mins.), Seamus Harahan and Chan Hau Chun. This was part of Sharna Pax's ongoing research for How To Work Together's 'Think Tank', which involves conversations with artists and filmmakers who work with collaboration and particular anthropological sensibilities. How to Work Together is a three-year (2013-2016) shared programme of contemporary art commissioning and research devised by Chisenhale Gallery, The Showroom and Studio Voltaire

Otherwise: Notes on Being Perennially In-Between

As artists and friends, we have worked together for many years, blurring the boundaries between filmmaking and shared experiences of life. Our dialogue seeks to describe a way of working distinctively respondent to situations, people and places: one that discovers its own process in the making

ICFAR PhD Master Classes, Andrea Luka Zimmerman

ICFAR PhD Master Classes addressed questions of practice within the context of doctoral work. Each workshop was run by an artist who has undertaken a PhD project. The guest artist talked about how they approached their own PhD, and reflected on how the doctoral work has informed their current intellectual and creative practice

Unlearning, learning, learner: a provocation for super vision

Considered and effective supervision of practice-based PhDs requires an expansion of, and challenge to, established modes of hierarchical academic and peer relationships. The production of knowledge, especially in this form-breaking field, cannot be separated from the means by which that output is assessed and circulated. This paper explores these tensions through case studies based directly on the writer’s experience. It proposes embodied learning –a revisioning of earlier parameters of scholarship –and an informed overhaul of the perspectives, positions and priorities of institutional expectation. It proposes instead a spectrum-wide inclusivity, one whose radical generosity and creative openness benefits all involved. Context: My research interests are co-existence (including non-human subjectivities), filmmaking as engaged social and political practice, participatory re-enactment, military/spectacular relations, imaginative hybridity and narrative de-framing in documentary practice, forms of reverie, class and culture, place and senses of belonging. I completed a practice-based and led PhD at CSM in 2006 on the idea of ‘secreting history’, exploring the spectacular and spectral relationship between Hollywood cinema and secret military operations, between personal history and public narrative on that history. This space in-between informs my research-based work. Practice-led PhDs have increased since my completing it, however, the discussions concerning what constitutes practice as research are as alive now as they were then. This text is a provocation along with a thinking through approaches to knowledge production and in particular PhD supervision, which, I believe, are ongoing processes that cannot be laid to rest if we aim to partake in a worldmaking whose focus is not simply ‘the way it is’, in particular in relation to western dominant, binary and capitalist normative trajectories of knowledge production

Building Resistance: Performing the Reality of Life as Protest

Performing Projections explores the two-year collaboration between Theatrum Mundi and Jayden Ali, Unit Leader of the Spatial Practices programme at Central Saint Martins. Combining the voices of students, educators, and practitioners the publication is centred around one fundamental question: Can performance-making be a craft for architectural thinking? The studio was an experimental testbed where methodologies were developed using the techniques of scoring, staging, rehearsing, and improvising to raise provocative questions about who has the right to access, occupy, use, and remake our urban environments. Contributors: Abby Bird/ Andrea Cetrulo/ Andrea Luka Zimmerman/ Andreas Lang/ Annie Dermawan/ Awais Ali/ Callum Brown/ Cameron Bray/ Cecily Chua/ Dhara Bhatt/ Elahe Karimnia/ Jake Johnson/ Jayden Ali/ John Bingham-Hall/ Kleanthis Kyriakou/ Lydia Hyde/ Mollie Griffiths/ Olivia Sutherill/ Rebecca Faulkner/ Sara Lohse Yibeijia L

Here for Life

HERE FOR LIFE (2019, 87mins) a film by Andrea Luka Zimmerman / Adrian Jackson produced by ARTANGEL World premiere, 72nd Locarno Film Festival 2019, awarded a Special Mention, Concorso Cineasti del Presente Nominated for the Raindance BIFA discovery award, 2019 1st prize international competition, Film Festival du Cinema en Ville, Belgium, 2020 "...an outstanding collective cinematic achievement. With its contagious rhythm, enthusiastic approach and generous love, the jury has decided to give the Feature Film Award to Here for Life" SOMETIMES WE NEED TO HEAR OUR STORIES TOLD BY SOMEONE ELSE In a world and a city framed by finance and loss, ten Londoners make their wild and wayward way, arguing for their own terms of definition as they go: singular lives, nudging towards a co-existence stronger than 'community'. On reclaimed land they find themselves, between two train tracks, on the right side of history, making their own wagers with the present tense and future hopes: with who has stolen what from whom, and how things might be fixed. Hesitant, troubled, open to wonder, bearing their wounds, so they, unruly, stage their lives. It is a heightened, often contradictory rite of passage; finding solidarity in resistance, clear of demands except the right to go on. Against the dictatorship of normalcy - CPHDOX Haven't seen anything like it. The underworld. The world. The space that none of us see but that is ever there. With us. Beside us. In us even. IN us all even. - Lemn Sissay, writer and broadcaste

ERASURES: Being, Seen

“Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense of that life, the empty space, the gap, is enormous.” – John Berger My grandfather was incarcerated in a Russian Gulag from age 16 to 21. Once released, he sailed the world on merchant ships, and settled in a country (Germany) he had never lived in before. In and out of prison, reluctant to submit to (absolutely any kind of) authority, he became a serious alcoholic and died young. Unless drunk he never spoke, but then no one wanted to speak to him, neither his wife nor his children, themselves also damaged people. And then there was me. I was the only one he agreed to speak with, and so, while I lived with them during bouts of homelessness, I became the one through whom the others conversed. - ISSUE is an international peer-reviewed art journal focused on exploring issues in contemporary art and culture. This annual publication is an inter- and trans-disciplinary journal that carries a curated set of scholarly articles, essays, interviews and exhibitions on disciplines ranging from contemporary art, design, film, media, performance and cultures. This is the eighth volume of ISSUE. Editor Venka Purushothaman Associate Editor Susie Wong Copy Editor Jean Wong Advisor Milenko Prvački Editorial Board Professor Patrick Flores, University of the Philippines Dr. Peter Hill, Artist and Adjunct Professor, RMIT University, Melbourne Professor Janis Jeffries, Goldsmiths, University of London Dr. Charles Merewether, Art Historian, Independent Researcher, Curator and Scholar Manager Sureni Salgadoe Contributors Jorella Andrews Dejan Grba Charles Merewether Nils Plath Sam I-shan Clare Veal Ian Woo Andrea Luka Zimmerma