Amelia’s Magazine | Looking a little closer at The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence

01

A few weeks ago a rather lovely fashion shoot dropped into Amelia’s Magazine inbox. A collaboration from the photographer Paul Cassidy and producerCristina Duran styled by and starring Silvia.

The entirely vintage shoot expresses the dramatic romanticism of Grey Gardens and the personal idiosyncrasies of the stylist. Shot for the majority in Paul’s living room, order visit web the beautifully coloured photographs develop (through the relation between house activity and the outfit it requires) the homage to two characters of fashion: Big and Little Edie.

02

When approaching the subject of Grey Gardens it became clear to Paul and Cristina that Silvia would have to be the stylist, medicine realising “as the concept developed…that an actual model wouldn’t be able to pull it off and that Silvia was perfect… As Silvia is, well, Silvia and they are her own clothes.”

03

In Grey Gardens, the subplot revolves around Little Edie’s rebellion towards her isolated existence is her outfits. After being introduced to the documentary by a friend, Cristina and Paul “became fascinated by the characters” Despite never watching it fully and Cristina only once, the two creatives built an “interior set without referring to the film too much. Most of the elements were really already in place, and my (Paul’s) apartment took very little adjusting” in order to be used in the photos.”

04

The photographs celebrate the whimsical side to fashion, the belief in an ability to create new versions of the self through personally sourced clothing. It is not surprising that Silvia command’s the viewer’s attention, her individuality bathed in the gentle light of the 1970’s. The cold colour hues are perfect compliment to the clothes, attributed no doubt to Cristina’s “particularly strong connection to retro aesthetic and colour. I guess Grey Gardens was a catalyst that brought everything together.”

A strong compositional element of the photographs is the mirroring of colour between the clothes and the environment. In the photograph below the peach colour of the dress references the cloth on the couch, as the blue occurs in the images pinned to the notice boards.

05

The fashion shoot expresses Paul and Cristina desire for “something a bit mad (in the sense of someone without normal social convention),” Little Edie and Big Edie were certainly considered that for their choice to eschew society. Paul continues to explain what made Silvia the perfect model. “Silvia in person is quite restrained and formal but like most people she has a flamboyant and eccentric side and really it took very little direction to get her to express that in the photos. She was one of the most interesting subjects that I’ve ever worked with in her manner of physical expression and her posing. So I think that there’s an awful lot of Silvia in the photos but there’s also a lot of fabrication and exaggeration in the story telling.”

Discussing the composition Paul mentioned the importance the collective places on storytelling bordering on “truth, untruth or realism and surrealism.” The collaborations’ synergy –evident in the sequence of photographs that illustrate the article – has developed from a mutual “deep focus on character,” expressed through the model’s ability to convey the concept of the piece through the position of her body within the camera’s frame or choice of garment to illustrate her occupying activity.

06

Whilst the aim of the photoshoot might not have been to directly encourage people to be thrifty when buying clothes, it cannot help but do so. Whilst thrifty shopping might not new in Madrid or the rest of Europe, what is missing is beautifully constructed fashion shoots celebrating this. As Paul mentions “second-hand clothes are always popular when there’s little money about. You find this strange mixture of a generation of young people that have dressed themselves between H&M and second-hand clothes shops. Both are cheap options and the vintage clothes can give personality and quality to the generic chain store brands.”

07

Little Edie would be proud to see the continued celebration of the individual and her sense of creative spirit.
01

A few weeks ago a rather lovely fashion shoot dropped into Amelia’s Magazine inbox. A collaboration from the photographer Paul Cassidy and producer Cristina Duran styled by and starring Silvia.

The entirely vintage shoot expresses the dramatic romanticism of Grey Gardens and the personal idiosyncrasies of the stylist. Shot for the majority in Paul’s living room, page the beautifully coloured photographs develop (through the relation between house activity and the outfit it requires) the homage to two characters of fashion: Big and Little Edie.

02

When approaching the subject of Grey Gardens it became clear to Paul and Cristina that Silvia would have to be the stylist, page realising “as the concept developed…that an actual model wouldn’t be able to pull it off and that Silvia was perfect… As Silvia is, stuff well, Silvia and they are her own clothes.”

03

In Grey Gardens, the subplot revolves around Little Edie’s rebellion towards her isolated existence is her outfits. After being introduced to the documentary by a friend, Cristina and Paul “became fascinated by the characters” Despite never watching it fully and Cristina only once, the two creatives built an “interior set without referring to the film too much. Most of the elements were really already in place, and my (Paul’s) apartment took very little adjusting” in order to be used in the photos.”

04

The photographs celebrate the whimsical side to fashion, the belief in an ability to create new versions of the self through personally sourced clothing. It is not surprising that Silvia command’s the viewer’s attention, her individuality bathed in the gentle light of the 1970’s. The cold colour hues are perfect compliment to the clothes, attributed no doubt to Cristina’s “particularly strong connection to retro aesthetic and colour. I guess Grey Gardens was a catalyst that brought everything together.”

A strong compositional element of the photographs is the mirroring of colour between the clothes and the environment. In the photograph below the peach colour of the dress references the cloth on the couch, as the blue occurs in the images pinned to the notice boards.

05

The fashion shoot expresses Paul and Cristina desire for “something a bit mad (in the sense of someone without normal social convention),” Little Edie and Big Edie were certainly considered that for their choice to eschew society. Paul continues to explain what made Silvia the perfect model. “Silvia in person is quite restrained and formal but like most people she has a flamboyant and eccentric side and really it took very little direction to get her to express that in the photos. She was one of the most interesting subjects that I’ve ever worked with in her manner of physical expression and her posing. So I think that there’s an awful lot of Silvia in the photos but there’s also a lot of fabrication and exaggeration in the story telling.”

Discussing the composition Paul mentioned the importance the collective places on storytelling bordering on “truth, untruth or realism and surrealism.” The collaborations’ synergy –evident in the sequence of photographs that illustrate the article – has developed from a mutual “deep focus on character,” expressed through the model’s ability to convey the concept of the piece through the position of her body within the camera’s frame or choice of garment to illustrate her occupying activity.

06

Whilst the aim of the photoshoot might not have been to directly encourage people to be thrifty when buying clothes, it cannot help but do so. Whilst thrifty shopping might not new in Madrid or the rest of Europe, what is missing is beautifully constructed fashion shoots celebrating this. As Paul mentions “second-hand clothes are always popular when there’s little money about. You find this strange mixture of a generation of young people that have dressed themselves between H&M and second-hand clothes shops. Both are cheap options and the vintage clothes can give personality and quality to the generic chain store brands.”

07

Little Edie would be proud to see the continued celebration of the individual and her sense of creative spirit.
The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence aimed to kick start a transition to a new economy, website looking at everybody’s carbon footprint and educating with a range of talks, speakers and workshops.

BP1

Held on 350:Day of Climate Action, the event was one of the hundreds happening worldwide to push people to tackle climate change. The Bigger Picture was held in an old warehouse on the South Bank, which although fairly old and decrepit, had a certain charm to it. The day before was spent setting up the four floors and rooms so that when the public were let in, the warehouse was packed full of leaflets, objects, art and a yellow t-shirted posse, ready to navigate people up the narrow staircases and back-rooms.
I spent the day wondering in and out, generally getting a bit overwhelmed by it all, but I’ve managed to pick out five of the workshops that stood out the most…

1. Climate Camp
Climate Camp had it’s own two rooms and had set up a replicate camp complete with tents, a fire made from bike lights, and a huge banner backdrop of tripods from a previous camp at Kingsnorth. All that was missing were hay bales that had been stopped by the determined health and safety who also prevented us from giving away cake, yes cake. Although, that didn’t stop a range of speakers and musicians telling people all about Climate Camps in the past and what we aim to do in the future.

BP2

2. Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It
You could pay a visit to the Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It and collect your very own Carbon Ration Book. The issued ration books showed the carbon emissions of our daily activities, like using a laptop or using public transport. This little book is something that we may have to get used to in the not so distant future, when carbon emissions become a commodity, although probably not in such a lovely 1950s design.

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3. Magnificent Revolution
Art collective, Magnificent Revolution, was also there to create the world’s first cycle-powered home in a special room at The Bigger Picture. Strangely shaped, bike-like sculptures, with protruding pedals powered various things from washing machines to blenders. You could even jump on and have a go, which is a great way to encourage all of us to take more steps towards low-energy living.

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4. Beekeeping
Heidi Hermann, founding member of the Natural Beekeeping Trust, gave an introduction into natural bee keeping with an array of beautiful crafted beehives and advice on how to set up your own. Due to human impact, the number of bees are dying dramatically and setting up your own can help reverse this. Believe it or not, when bees become extinct, the human race can only survive for a few years. Most people don’t realise how much the humble bumble bee is indeed an important part of our delicate eco system.

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5. Breadmaking
There was a chance to join master baker and bread hero, Paul Barker of Cinnamon Square, for some bread making lessons and tips to bake the perfect loaf. People could also take home the bread at the end of the day, which meant the lovely freshly baked bread aroma filled the warehouse all day.

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With over forty-five leading thinkers, activists, authors and artists attending The Bigger Picture, it meant throughout the whole day people could get involved with a range of debates and discussions, from lively talks on money issues to in-depth discussions about the Copenhagen summit in December.

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The one-day event put on by Nef, an independent think-and-do tank, was hugely popular. Huge queues snaked around outside most of the day, with singers and speakers having to keep people entertained outside. The day certainly helped to encourage people to look at their own carbon footprint and it was good to see solutions and not only the problems, with everyone starting to look a little closer at the bigger picture.

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Categories ,350-international-day-of-climate-action, ,Beekeeping, ,Breadmaking, ,Cinnamon Square, ,climate, ,Climate Camp, ,Copenhagen summit, ,low-energy living, ,Magnificent Revolution, ,Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It, ,Natural Beekeeping Trust, ,Nef, ,pedals powered, ,rations, ,south bank, ,The The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence, ,transition

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Amelia’s Magazine | Operation Bike Bloc: Designing the Resistance Machine!

page -2″ src=”http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Shaun-McDowell-Untitled-2.gif” alt=”Shaun-McDowell–Untitled, this web -2″ />Untitled 2 by Shaun Mc Dowell

To examine artists on display in regards to their own sense of what is intangible; what is the unbeknownst? Cecily Brown (one of the five artists displaying), once elucidated of her method; ‘Often, I find it really hard to see what I’m doing when I’m in the thick of things (painting).’ This seemed a resonant befall to take into the exhibition, and one that permeated throughout; the artist’s blindness filtering down to the viewers’ perception.

steve-white-installation-shAll photographs by Stephen White, courtesy of Parasol unit

On entering the chic industrial space of the Parasol Unit, the viewer is introduced to Katy Moran’s installations of small, yet expressively fueled paintings. Ambiguous and ethereal spaces, you are inserted into a void of instability. She is emphatically a cannon for the abstract. Sometimes unsettling, occasionally frustrating (primarily by the evasive titles), but most of all, her paintings are enchanting. Staring into a framed space of colour and shape, for example Daniel, the warped style within the pieces allude to envisions of nothingness that are quite remarkable.

steve white installation shots 054

Shaun McDowell, renowned for his part in the Peckham art squats, uses colour and technique in a vast and expansive means. Glaringly bright and expansively detailed, what initially looks like a lot of fun swiftly augments to a somewhat dark and unnerving visage. Strolling slowly past his paintings, I became ever more hypnotised as the images took on a pseudo stereogram quality. In seeing what wasn’t there, McDowell emulates invisibility by somehow tricking his viewer into complacence, before revealing his true mien.

steve white installation shots 030

Spotted throughout the gallery, Hans Josephsohn’s sculptures have a weird (for want of a better word) presence. Remindful of Easter Island Moai, the veteran sculptor’s cast brass creations have a transcendent quality. Although clearly based upon the human form, they seem to capture their own timeless space with an omnipresent earthliness.

Cecily Brown and Maaike Schoorel probably make for the biggest contrast within the exhibition. Feasibly the crux of the collective display, Brown’s paintings are entirely mesmerising. Sensual and figurative, each image draws the viewer in. A lieu of strokes, the paintings seem to shift with every glance, yielding an ever more desire to look. Saturated with existentialist sensibilities, her works exude human instinct. Counter to this, Maaike Schoorel seems to take a much more apathetic stance. Her bleached canvases denote a controlled and methodical temperament. Her works certainly evoke the invisible, and after forcefully adjusting to her palate, figures and landscapes subtlety emerge.

Katy-Moran,-Salters-Ridge,-Salters Ridge by Katy Moran

Visible Invisible invites the viewer into an uncomfortable world where a desired truth is obsolete. Each artist takes their own stance on how to barrage their audience with a distinctive underlay. Irritating the senses, the exhibition leaves you wanting for something that evades, and, insofar, wanting more.

Visible Invisible: Against the Security of the Real is at the Parasol unit, Foundation for Contemporary Art, 14 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW from 25.11.09 – 07.02.10. Gallery opens Tuesday to Saturday 10 am to 6 pm. Sunday is 12 to 5 pm. First Thursday of every month, open until 9 pm. Admission if free. Please note that from 6pm on Friday 18 December 2009 until Tuesday 5 January 2010 Parasol unit will be closed for the holidays.
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Last week at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol Climate Camp and the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination joined forces to become Operation Bike Bloc, prescription which will launch the Resistance Machine in Copenhagen on the 16th of December. First however the prototype had to be designed and built. So what on earth materialised when a bunch of volunteers and activists were let loose with a pile of old bikes and welding equipment? I called up JJ, one of the projects facilitators, to find out…

So how did the designing and building of the prototypes go in Bristol last week?

It was brilliant, the idea of the week in Bristol was about creating a collective culture, a lot of social engineering, a lot of the work was getting these people that had never really worked in this formation to build a lot of trust, and work fast and efficiently together, and something that is importantly fun. It was really successful. We then started to set out the design process, through working collectively together we’d already formed a merge of intelligence because the 2 groups that went off to do designs came up with exactly the same 2 ideas, that was really beautiful, it showed that we were really on the same page. There was a wall in the gallery with maybe 100 different designs, so we were looking at those and discussing. Then basically we had this big shipping container outside with this big poster on the side of it. People just welded, learnt to weld, there was a lot of skill sharing.

bb1

What kind of ideas did every one come up with?

Well there are 3 prototypes; the first is ‘The Swarm’, which involves many bikes attached together so that anyone can become a part of the bike bloc. The ideas based on bees swarming, with many bodies communicating together. Then there is ‘Double Double Trouble’ that is 2 tall bikes, basically if you imagine 2 bike frames welded together, it’s got 2 wheels with the bike frames welded on top of each other to make a tall bike about 9/20 ft tall, with a chariot in the middle of those 2 to ride through the streets. That’ll be used for carrying people, things, lots of different uses, for getting up high and so on.The 3rd thing, prototype, ‘The Machine’, won’t actually be released, it’s a secret! That’ll actually be released on the 16th, the day of action in Copenhagen.

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Didn’t you stay on a boat while you were in Bristol?

We stayed on the boat every night, which was fantastic, we all worked collectively, cooking and cleaning together, for us one of the most important things is creating rebel friendships and really enabling people to trust each other and work together well. That is really important, building friendships and relationships really.

The project involves Climate Camp and the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination collaborating. How do these 2 work together?

Well the Lab is a collection of volunteers and activists that sets this project going and then we collaborated with Climate Camp,  for us it’s a bit like we’re trying to create this spark, with various bits of wood and if that catches then that’s  a project that happens. We’d try and keep the spark going till lots of other bits of wood and materials come in and it catches and the fire starts. It’s about losing control in the sense of starting off an idea and making it open. That’s a key part of what we do. Everyone owns it, which is very different from other ways artists work, quite the opposite.

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And finally how to you think things will pan-out in Copenhagen at Candy Factory? What are your hopes?

We like to create an idea that has its own sort of mythology or power behind it, I think that is beginning to happen already, it seems to have captured peoples imagination, it really is about designing new forms of civil disobedience and making it fun and adventurous, effective and  beautiful, that seems to be happening, we’ve already got about 150 bikes waiting for us in Copenhagen when we get there. We’re going to be based in the Candy Factory, in like a legalized squat. How is it going to go? Well I don’t want to make any predictions, I think it’s unexpected. Our dream is that on the 16th, the day of civil disobedience, the reclaim power day when the Climate Justice Action group which is the wider network we’re working within, the idea is to go and non violently push through… and not escalate to violence but get as near to the UN conference as possible and then to create a peoples summit for climate justice. I think what could happen and I think this would be a historically important moment if it did is that while we do that delegates from the inside would walk out and join to create a new space. It could be amazing. We’re hoping that the bike bloc would enable that to happen as we’re going to be this mobile swarm that’s constantly moving around, like a cavalry from one place to another, engaging and moving off. So hopefully we’ll be able to enable that to happen and also maybe to get people who haven’t done activism or who might feel like it feels safer to be on a bicycle. And also there’s nothing more fun, it’s like being kids, all in your bike gang and that’s what the project is, the title is put the fun between your legs and that’s super important for us that people just love doing it.

bb5
Photography by Amy Scaife

More coming soon on the COP15 summit and the unveiling of ‘The Machine’!

A cool video incase you missed it first time around…

Vrooooom

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination
Climate Camp
Climate Justice Action

Categories ,activism, ,bikes, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Change, ,Climate Justice Action, ,collaboration, ,copenhagen, ,earth, ,Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

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Amelia’s Magazine | Film Preview: Just Do It – get off your arse and change the world launches Crowd Funding appeal


Alice Early, approved from her graduate work

Kingston University might be a hop, skip and a jump from the capital, but the 2010 fashion graduates aren’t letting a little thing like distance stop them from becoming real contenders in the fashion stakes. I went along to Graduate Fashion Week to find out just what the noise from the suburbs is all about. 

Standing at the front of the cavernous Earl’s Court 2 arena, River Island’s Graduate Fashion Week sings it’s assault on the senses, a holding pen for the designers of the future. Bright lights, pumping music and hundreds of discerning fashion devotees mill around institutes’ stands; groups form and disperse, giggle and buzz through the milieu. ‘I like her shoes, I wonder if that’s a wig, isn’t that Vivienne Westwood?!’

Amongst the activity, a stand glows at the front, a beacon of minimalist beauty: welcome to Kingston. 

Representative students are dressed in clean black t-shirts, hints of their individuality breaking through with a slick of lipstick or a quiff set just-so. White stands display student portfolios. The monochrome serenity of Kingston’s presentation is impressively slick, but I am struck by how, behind the blank white covers, the students’ portfolios come alive with a turn of the page. Illustrations of every kind dance like flickbook figures running across the paper, the minute but ornate versions of the catwalk to come. Pocketing an equally gorgeous guide to the designs to be shown, I’m soon heading off to Kingston’s prime time catwalk slot, seated just in time for the lights to go down. 


Live front row illustration by Lauren Macaulay

Alice Early’s designs make for a grand debut with her exploration into the craft of tailoring; rounded cape shoulders and flowing dresses enhance the silhouette of the slinky models, but leather tops and soft, wearable tailoring on high waisted trousers show Early has been paying attention to the direction of fashion today. Baby blues and smattering of peacock prints add a subtle femininity that appears in drops across Kingston’s show.

Sophie Hudspith’s rose and teal sheer knitwear seems to play under the lights of the catwalk, a fine lattice intricately woven together. Meanwhile, Lucy Hammond takes to the other end of the feminine spectrum with her tongue-in-cheek girl about town sweaters pronouncing ‘I Love Knitting, I’m not Shitting’. If Dennis the Menace can put up with her potty mouth he’d love Hammond’s knit’n’purl girl decked in red and black stripes and oversize, floorlength scarfs inspired by the work of Sonya Rykiel.

Nathalie Tunna showcases some of my favourite designs of the show in cute, round shoulder dresses, completed by a zesty palette of pastels. The lines of her garments have an exactness befitting of Jackie O, but a playfulness is inherent in the accessories as leather trim backpacks and printed holdalls make an appearance.    

For an institute hitting so many marks, it’s odd that 21 year old knitwear Zac Marshall should announce that he likes ‘getting it wrong’. But experimentation and an exploration into deconstruction and altering panelling have left Marshall with a wrong-and-yet-so-right collection of menswear. The audience could barely take their eyes off their cute, hand-knitted creatures adorning the jumpers, but clever twists on tailoring meant Marshall’s clothes are more than just fancy dress costumes.

David Stoneman-Merret’s garments share a sense of hyperactive jumper joy (you know the joy, when you find that amazing jumper with a teddy bear eating a cheeseburger on it in a charity shop for a pound), with pixelated digital prints of flowers and his Nan in a Christmas hat. Her death two years ago inspired an exploration into the garments worn by the elderly and the darker realms of dementia, but David is adamant that his Nan would be jumping for joy too: ‘She would have loved the attention- she’d be telling everyone ‘That’s me on that top!’ I’d have to agree with Nanny Stoneman Merret, appearing on such odd but strangely entrancing garments is an accolade to be proud of. 

Naama Rietti sends models down the catwalk with breathtaking, contorted knitted headwear and matching neck pieces. They twist and come to life as faces emerge from their fabric as a bestial addition to a collection scattered with snakeskin prints and rich blue furs coats.

Angharad Probert’s lust for large scale ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ style fur creations is evident as models strut to a hypnotic, trendy beat; the large collars and dip-dye effect rustling to the rhythm. Sheepskin and fur headpieces hint at mohicans and transform the catwalk into a beautiful Darwinian manifestation, complete with extra details such as razor sharp teeth adorning leggings. Panelling slits reveal gasps of skin on a knee or shoulder, the armour of the modern warrior woman.

Zheng Zeng mixes up the female shape with contours etched into the patterns, dipping and diving over the curves of the body and ballooning on the shoulders like a superhero. 
The final two showings cross polar opposites in fashion but bring the show to a fantastic finale. First Vivian Wong shows her deconstructed business suits – parts removed, ripped up and replaced. Wong creates entirely new shapes on the body; a lapel is moved and a neckline becomes a triangle, or a collar hangs glibly down. In a comment on the recent MP expenses scandal, Wong is asking her audience what it means to have a rule or a uniform broken down, taken back to the drawing board and reimagined in a new way. Her suits conjure glimpses of the 1980s power woman but distinct lines on the body and luxury greys and browns bring the look up to date.

Finally, Harriet de Roeper closes the show in style, as her moody, androgynous suits are paired with Dr Martens, in an homage to the anarchy of Lord of the Flies. Flies stamp the exterior of her suits in spludges and splashes, a sense of chaos that jars against the formality of button up collars and polo necks. 

As the last model trails off the catwalk, I’m struck by the maturity inherent in much of Kingston’s work. Whilst fashion inspiration can be tenuous and at times somewhat off the mark, the Surrey fashion gang have certainly been doing something right. Collections express a clear and solid direction. For a class that draws so much inspiration from rebellion against tradition, it would be promising to see the next students amp up the risks a little more, but you can’t complain about a graduate collection that is making this writer head off for some serious talks with her bank manager.

Alice Early, pills from her graduate work

Kingston University might be a hop, and skip and a jump from the capital, cheapest but the 2010 fashion graduates aren’t letting a little thing like distance stop them from becoming real contenders in the fashion stakes. I went along to Graduate Fashion Week to find out just what the noise from the suburbs is all about. 

Standing at the front of the cavernous Earl’s Court 2 arena, River Island’s Graduate Fashion Week sings it’s assault on the senses, a holding pen for the designers of the future. Bright lights, pumping music and hundreds of discerning fashion devotees mill around institutes’ stands; groups form and disperse, giggle and buzz through the milieu. ‘I like her shoes, I wonder if that’s a wig, isn’t that Vivienne Westwood?!’

Amongst the activity, a stand glows at the front, a beacon of minimalist beauty: welcome to Kingston. 

Representative students are dressed in clean black t-shirts, hints of their individuality breaking through with a slick of lipstick or a quiff set just-so. White stands display student portfolios. The monochrome serenity of Kingston’s presentation is impressively slick, but I am struck by how, behind the blank white covers, the students’ portfolios come alive with a turn of the page. Illustrations of every kind dance like flickbook figures running across the paper, the minute but ornate versions of the catwalk to come. Pocketing an equally gorgeous guide to the designs to be shown, I’m soon heading off to Kingston’s prime time catwalk slot, seated just in time for the lights to go down. 


Live front row illustration by Lauren Macaulay

Alice Early’s designs make for a grand debut with her exploration into the craft of tailoring; rounded cape shoulders and flowing dresses enhance the silhouette of the slinky models, but leather tops and soft, wearable tailoring on high waisted trousers show Early has been paying attention to the direction of fashion today. Baby blues and smattering of peacock prints add a subtle femininity that appears in drops across Kingston’s show.

Sophie Hudspith’s rose and teal sheer knitwear seems to play under the lights of the catwalk, a fine lattice intricately woven together. Meanwhile, Lucy Hammond takes to the other end of the feminine spectrum with her tongue-in-cheek girl about town sweaters pronouncing ‘I Love Knitting, I’m not Shitting’. If Dennis the Menace can put up with her potty mouth he’d love Hammond’s knit’n’purl girl decked in red and black stripes and oversize, floorlength scarfs inspired by the work of Sonya Rykiel.

Nathalie Tunna showcases some of my favourite designs of the show in cute, round shoulder dresses, completed by a zesty palette of pastels. The lines of her garments have an exactness befitting of Jackie O, but a playfulness is inherent in the accessories as leather trim backpacks and printed holdalls make an appearance.    

For an institute hitting so many marks, it’s odd that 21 year old knitwear Zac Marshall should announce that he likes ‘getting it wrong’. But experimentation and an exploration into deconstruction and altering panelling have left Marshall with a wrong-and-yet-so-right collection of menswear. The audience could barely take their eyes off their cute, hand-knitted creatures adorning the jumpers, but clever twists on tailoring meant Marshall’s clothes are more than just fancy dress costumes.

David Stoneman-Merret’s garments share a sense of hyperactive jumper joy (you know the joy, when you find that amazing jumper with a teddy bear eating a cheeseburger on it in a charity shop for a pound), with pixelated digital prints of flowers and his Nan in a Christmas hat. Her death two years ago inspired an exploration into the garments worn by the elderly and the darker realms of dementia, but David is adamant that his Nan would be jumping for joy too: ‘She would have loved the attention- she’d be telling everyone ‘That’s me on that top!’ I’d have to agree with Nanny Stoneman Merret, appearing on such odd but strangely entrancing garments is an accolade to be proud of. 

Naama Rietti sends models down the catwalk with breathtaking, contorted knitted headwear and matching neck pieces. They twist and come to life as faces emerge from their fabric as a bestial addition to a collection scattered with snakeskin prints and rich blue furs coats.

Angharad Probert’s lust for large scale ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ style fur creations is evident as models strut to a hypnotic, trendy beat; the large collars and dip-dye effect rustling to the rhythm. Sheepskin and fur headpieces hint at mohicans and transform the catwalk into a beautiful Darwinian manifestation, complete with extra details such as razor sharp teeth adorning leggings. Panelling slits reveal gasps of skin on a knee or shoulder, the armour of the modern warrior woman.

Zheng Zeng mixes up the female shape with contours etched into the patterns, dipping and diving over the curves of the body and ballooning on the shoulders like a superhero. 
The final two showings cross polar opposites in fashion but bring the show to a fantastic finale. First Vivian Wong shows her deconstructed business suits – parts removed, ripped up and replaced. Wong creates entirely new shapes on the body; a lapel is moved and a neckline becomes a triangle, or a collar hangs glibly down. In a comment on the recent MP expenses scandal, Wong is asking her audience what it means to have a rule or a uniform broken down, taken back to the drawing board and reimagined in a new way. Her suits conjure glimpses of the 1980s power woman but distinct lines on the body and luxury greys and browns bring the look up to date.

Finally, Harriet de Roeper closes the show in style, as her moody, androgynous suits are paired with Dr Martens, in an homage to the anarchy of Lord of the Flies. Flies stamp the exterior of her suits in spludges and splashes, a sense of chaos that jars against the formality of button up collars and polo necks. 

As the last model trails off the catwalk, I’m struck by the maturity inherent in much of Kingston’s work. Whilst fashion inspiration can be tenuous and at times somewhat off the mark, the Surrey fashion gang have certainly been doing something right. Collections express a clear and solid direction. For a class that draws so much inspiration from rebellion against tradition, it would be promising to see the next students amp up the risks a little more, but you can’t complain about a graduate collection that is making this writer head off for some serious talks with her bank manager.


Alice Early, sickness from her graduate work

Kingston University might be a hop, order skip and a jump from the capital, viagra sale but the 2010 fashion graduates aren’t letting a little thing like distance stop them from becoming real contenders in the fashion stakes. I went along to Graduate Fashion Week to find out just what the noise from the suburbs is all about. 

Standing at the front of the cavernous Earl’s Court 2 arena, River Island’s Graduate Fashion Week sings it’s assault on the senses, a holding pen for the designers of the future. Bright lights, pumping music and hundreds of discerning fashion devotees mill around institutes’ stands; groups form and disperse, giggle and buzz through the milieu. ‘I like her shoes, I wonder if that’s a wig, isn’t that Vivienne Westwood?!’

Amongst the activity, a stand glows at the front, a beacon of minimalist beauty: welcome to Kingston. 

Representative students are dressed in clean black t-shirts, hints of their individuality breaking through with a slick of lipstick or a quiff set just-so. White stands display student portfolios. The monochrome serenity of Kingston’s presentation is impressively slick, but I am struck by how, behind the blank white covers, the students’ portfolios come alive with a turn of the page. Illustrations of every kind dance like flickbook figures running across the paper, the minute but ornate versions of the catwalk to come. Pocketing an equally gorgeous guide to the designs to be shown, I’m soon heading off to Kingston’s prime time catwalk slot, seated just in time for the lights to go down. 


Live front row illustration by Lauren Macaulay

Alice Early’s designs make for a grand debut with her exploration into the craft of tailoring; rounded cape shoulders and flowing dresses enhance the silhouette of the slinky models, but leather tops and soft, wearable tailoring on high waisted trousers show Early has been paying attention to the direction of fashion today. Baby blues and smattering of peacock prints add a subtle femininity that appears in drops across Kingston’s show.

Sophie Hudspith’s rose and teal sheer knitwear seems to play under the lights of the catwalk, a fine lattice intricately woven together. Meanwhile, Lucy Hammond takes to the other end of the feminine spectrum with her tongue-in-cheek girl about town sweaters pronouncing ‘I Love Knitting, I’m not Shitting’. If Dennis the Menace can put up with her potty mouth he’d love Hammond’s knit’n’purl girl decked in red and black stripes and oversize, floorlength scarfs inspired by the work of Sonya Rykiel.

Nathalie Tunna showcases some of my favourite designs of the show in cute, round shoulder dresses, completed by a zesty palette of pastels. The lines of her garments have an exactness befitting of Jackie O, but a playfulness is inherent in the accessories as leather trim backpacks and printed holdalls make an appearance.    

For an institute hitting so many marks, it’s odd that 21 year old knitwear Zac Marshall should announce that he likes ‘getting it wrong’. But experimentation and an exploration into deconstruction and altering panelling have left Marshall with a wrong-and-yet-so-right collection of menswear. The audience could barely take their eyes off their cute, hand-knitted creatures adorning the jumpers, but clever twists on tailoring meant Marshall’s clothes are more than just fancy dress costumes.

David Stoneman-Merret’s garments share a sense of hyperactive jumper joy (you know the joy, when you find that amazing jumper with a teddy bear eating a cheeseburger on it in a charity shop for a pound), with pixelated digital prints of flowers and his Nan in a Christmas hat. Her death two years ago inspired an exploration into the garments worn by the elderly and the darker realms of dementia, but David is adamant that his Nan would be jumping for joy too: ‘She would have loved the attention- she’d be telling everyone ‘That’s me on that top!’ I’d have to agree with Nanny Stoneman Merret, appearing on such odd but strangely entrancing garments is an accolade to be proud of. 

Naama Rietti sends models down the catwalk with breathtaking, contorted knitted headwear and matching neck pieces. They twist and come to life as faces emerge from their fabric as a bestial addition to a collection scattered with snakeskin prints and rich blue furs coats.

Angharad Probert’s lust for large scale ‘Where the Wild Things Are‘ style fur creations is evident as models strut to a hypnotic, trendy beat; the large collars and dip-dye effect rustling to the rhythm. Sheepskin and fur headpieces hint at mohicans and transform the catwalk into a beautiful Darwinian manifestation, complete with extra details such as razor sharp teeth adorning leggings. Panelling slits reveal gasps of skin on a knee or shoulder, the armour of the modern warrior woman.

Zheng Zeng mixes up the female shape with contours etched into the patterns, dipping and diving over the curves of the body and ballooning on the shoulders like a superhero. 
The final two showings cross polar opposites in fashion but bring the show to a fantastic finale. First Vivian Wong shows her deconstructed business suits – parts removed, ripped up and replaced. Wong creates entirely new shapes on the body; a lapel is moved and a neckline becomes a triangle, or a collar hangs glibly down. In a comment on the recent MP expenses scandal, Wong is asking her audience what it means to have a rule or a uniform broken down, taken back to the drawing board and reimagined in a new way. Her suits conjure glimpses of the 1980s power woman but distinct lines on the body and luxury greys and browns bring the look up to date.

Finally, Harriet de Roeper closes the show in style, as her moody, androgynous suits are paired with Dr. Martens, in an homage to the anarchy of Lord of the Flies. Flies stamp the exterior of her suits in spludges and splashes, a sense of chaos that jars against the formality of button up collars and polo necks. 

As the last model trails off the catwalk, I’m struck by the maturity inherent in much of Kingston’s work. Whilst fashion inspiration can be tenuous and at times somewhat off the mark, the Surrey fashion gang have certainly been doing something right. Collections express a clear and solid direction. For a class that draws so much inspiration from rebellion against tradition, it would be promising to see the next students amp up the risks a little more, but you can’t complain about a graduate collection that is making this writer head off for some serious talks with her bank manager.


Live illustration of the UEL front row, doctor by Lauren Macaulay

Kicking off Graduate Fashion week, search the East London Show was a blend of slick, commercially-minded pieces, and the challenging designs this pocket of London is famed for. From the glossy brochure showcasing the class of 2010, to several wearable, beautifully crafted collections, it could quite easily have been a commercial catwalk show.
 
Several collections chimed with existing trends – Charlotte Macke’s black moulded felt and macramé dresses, with accessories draped with chain-mail, were a reminder of the ‘urban warrior’ we have seen marching catwalks for a few seasons, and there were countless versions of the nineties body con, maxi length and minimalist aesthetic that Louise Goldin and Marios Schwab have played with.  

Equally easy on the eye was Jane Branco’s “Kiss Me Deadly” collection of draped, soft-toned silk-jersey dresses, and Queesra Abbas Dad’s upmarket traveller, with models wrapped up in fur hats, camel coats, brocade trousers and matching suitcases, off on an exotic expedition. Both collections wouldn’t have looked out of place on a luxury label’s shop floor.  

But you come to a graduate show expecting fresh blood, and there were plenty of students who brought the East London edge.


Live catwalk illustrations by Lauren Macaulay

Bunmi Olayi’s ‘Matriarchy’ collection went for the warrior vibe, but with striking results. Inspired by the Ekpe ‘leopard masquerade’, a women-only cult in pre-colonial Nigeria, and Scottish missionary Mary Slessor (a revolutionary figure in the Victorian age) Olaye’s designs were a fierce combination of the tribal and traditional. Models stormed down the catwalk with sticks topped with pom-poms, and feathered masks and headdresses, their bodies clad in a sharp Victorian silhouette. This was playful power dressing, with well-tailored jackets, balloon sleeves, and a sweet skirt suit in burnt ochre and deep red, adorned with raffia, bells and beads, and cartoonish giant pom-poms.  

Another stand-out name was Johanna Greenish. ‘Unfold’, a collection of simple, exquisitely crafted monochrome pieces, explores “the effect of folding and unfolding fabric”. Layers of rough, unfinished materials were manipulated into geometric shapes, and origami-like creations were toughened up with leather accents – from a leather dress with a paper-thin collar, to rippling skirts paired with thick leather belts. The star of the show was a top that unfolded in two different directions, creating a ‘concertina’ on the model’s chest.  

Uniform across the collections was the attention to detail –with eye-catching accessories just as exciting as the clothes. Diana Gevorgian’s collection of black leather suits and sheer organza shirts were inspired by “metal roosters bought from a car boot sale”, evident in the metal decorations of feathers adorning everything from leather gloves to the avant-garde shoes.  

“The starting point was a photograph of nuns smoking”. Hard to believe, but Stephanie Hemphill’s collection of short, cobalt wool dresses, grey hooded tops and latex peekaboo layers were a contemporary take on the nun’s habit. We doubt you’ll be seeing these designs down a convent anytime soon, but Hemphill’s clean, futuristic designs were some of my favourites in the show.


Live catwalk illustrations by Lauren Macaulay

Also worth a mention was Anna Grzegorczyk’s “Patterns of the Earth”, a rustic range of cocoon shaped dresses, paired with thick wooden sandals, and clunky jewelry. Inspired by “trips to Scandinavian countries” and “the beauty and harshness of Norwegian Fjords”, each dress had an organic feel, with hand-dyed fabrics, and soft romantic shapes. Each garmet was decorated with ripples and cracks from a book of natural patterns, and whilst the shapes weren’t particularly adventurous, they billowed around the frame beautifully.  

In a show of strong, ‘warrior’ inspired shapes, strong colours and heavy embellishment, Grzegorczyk’s pared-down palette and natural aesthetic was rather refreshing.


Live catwalk illustrations by Lauren Macaulay

Images courtesy of catwalking.com

Photography by Mini Mouse

Left Field Films is producing an exciting new documentary film on climate change and is asking for your help to get it completed. Since 2009, order Just Do It: get off your arse and change the world has been following the mischievous antics of UK Climate Change Activists. Emily James, here the film’s director was granted unprecedented access to document a variety of direct actions from the fraught G20 protest, buy the occupation of Blackheath by Climate Camp to Copenhagen and the spectacular failure of the UN COP 15 climate talks.

This is the briefest of introductions to a film that will inspire you to get off your arse and change the world and does no justice to the breadth and width of the activities and activists who inspired the project.

Heard about the time a load of bikes closed down Westminster?

YouTube Preview Image

For more videos documenting the variety of actions appearing in the film, check out the Just Do It website.

What makes this film really special is that it will be completely non-commercial and is being produced by a combination of volunteers and film professionals. As none of the costs will be coming from sales Just Do It are asking the public to help fund the production costs, to enable this exciting documentary to be released completely for free under creative commons.

Launched on Monday 14th June, the crowd funding appeal enables you to help make a film you would like to see by putting your money where you mouth is and sponsoring the film.

Photography by Kristian Buus

This is a community engaged film in which the move away from a financially driven production model towards self publishing enables the contributors and the wider team to have far more rights and input than if this was a commissioned documentary. Importantly Just Do It are able to tell the stories of the activists without the editorial or stylistic concerns of a Broadcaster.

Just Do It is the story of people standing up to worldwide governmental inefficiency to tackle the problem of Climate Change. It is a tale of people getting up, leaving the house and taking a stance for what they believe. Just Do It introduces the people behind the politics as they stand up against corporations and the subsequent treatment they receive.

Photography by Rob Logan

The film is: “a story of heroic individuals throwing themselves against the might of the machine, because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of success or failure. By telling their story, we hope to inspire and incite others to do the same.” Just Do It 2010.

Photography by Rob Logan

By releasing the documentary under creative commons Just Do It are making this film “in a way that reflects the culture that it is about. We want to give it away rather than capitalise on it, and support the Creative Commons and Free Culture movement.” Just Do It 2010

Photography by Kristian Buus

What are you waiting for? Just Do It!

Directed by Emily James it follows the story of 3 organisations, 2 loose affiliations and one domestic extremist: Marina Pepper (Seen in the Last Picture).

Categories ,Activists, ,Bike Rush, ,Campaign Against Climate Change, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Change, ,Climate Rush, ,Cop 15, ,copenhagen, ,Creative Commons, ,Free Culture, ,g20, ,Just Do It Film, ,Just Do It: get off your arse and change the world, ,Kristian Buus, ,london, ,Marina Pepper, ,Minnie Mouse, ,Plane Stupid, ,Rob Logan

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Amelia’s Magazine | Shutting down Didcot Power Station

pythia futuremap copy

Zoe Paul graduated from Camberwell BA Sculpture earlier this summer. Whilst there Zoe participated in numerous shows from the group exhibition Factory at the James Taylor Gallery organised by Royal College MA Curation graduate Dean Kissick and a solo show titled ‘Between the Eyes’ at Coleman Road. This year Zoe has been selected to participate in ‘Future Map 09’ and discussed the concept of sculpture with Amelia’s Magazine.

What is in particular that interests you about sculpture?

I am interested in the form and mass that is sculpture. I like the way we as humans relate ourselves to objects through their three dimensionalism. We are given the option to walk around and view the object from multiple angles and vantage points creating our own image from that object. We judge the object as being larger or smaller than human scale and this plays a large role in our perception of the object.

DSCF1038

You have made numerous paintings, information pills purchase have interests crossed over from painting into sculpture?

Well, I think I feel happier thinking in three dimensions and I have always felt more successful in making objects but I appreciate painting and drawing very highly. It’s a very different way of thinking. I’ve done quite a bit of life drawing and painting; I think it’s helped me to appreciate form. I strongly believe in drawing, if not as a final out come, then as a practice to learn to see. I think as a sculptor it is important to learn to look at things and see how they work formally then you understand them. I always think I can see things better after I draw from life because it forces me to really look and not just glance. I went to art school in Athens for a year and had this amazing classical training there before doing my degree in London. I definitely think it gave me a different perspective.

I think I am a bit shy to make paintings now because I feel like I expose too much of myself, but with sculptures I rely on the materials and the mass of the objects to defend themselves.

amazon boob

At Amelia’s we love to hear about the creative process, would you mind explaining (however you like) your personal process of designing and developing a sculpture?

For myself the making process is a vital part of how I develop an idea. I make a lot, a lot doesn’t always work but I find it useful. I try not to think of anything as a definitive piece, the important bit is the process. My work is frequently based around materials. By using impoverished materials I am devaluing the monumentalism classical sculpture holds. Making ‘Pythia’ was a very labour intensive process. I relate the carving of the polystyrene armature and the precise measuring and cutting of each individual tile to the carving of ancient marbles. It was very industrial and ordered. I made them imagining I was making an architectural fitting, which is kind of what the classical sculptures were in their day. I also spent a lot of time in the British Museum taking photographs and working on them as drawings and sketches.
I try to have a strong studio practice as well. Just being in a space for work is important.

Do you start with an idea or a medium or are both equally important in your work. If this is a bit vague, I mean does the medium start the idea or does the idea influence the medium used?

I think the two go together, although I pay more attention to materials than I realize. I thought up ‘Sunset Island’ while I was in LA and I had a lot of time to think about it. I wanted to represent the crummy, grimy glamour of Hollywood with the cocktail sticks and the industrial fiberglass sphere. So yes materials make me think of things. My degree show work on temporal exoticism and classical Hellenistic sculpture came about from working with tiles and trawling the isles of hardware stores, and finding cheap marble effect ceramic tiles. This cheap marble effect alludes to the wealth represented by classical marbles.

GetAttachment.aspx

Do you prefer to work entirely on your own as you are creating a sculpture?

I need to think by myself and write but its really boring working alone. Now I’ve finished college, my studio is really small, crammed and damp. I miss always being able to find someone to get a coffee with when I want to take a break.

I also think sculpture is a social process. I didn’t really paint at college because the studios were really open and I need to be alone to paint, its much more personal. Sculpture however requires banter. However I pretty much had to make my degree show piece, ‘Pythia’ entirely on my own. The tile cutter makes such an awful noise I was as good as exiled out the studios at college.

Rock and tuft

Who or what are your artistic inspirations

My biggest inspiration was going to Los Angeles last year when I interned as a studio assistant for Mindy Shapero. College was OK but it was a bit grey, working for Mindy made me really hungry to make and really want to be an artist. There was so much energy and exuberance in the approach to life. I realized that I probably could do it if I wanted it badly enough. I also met some amazing artists out there, like Thomas Houseago. He was so inspirational and had so much energy.

I can’t help being inspired by greats such as Picasso and Brancusi. Recently I have been reading about Rodin’s love for Greek sculpture as it conveyed the ‘ravages of the time’ in its ‘fragmentary aspect’. Rodin was a pioneer of the existential being conveyed through representation of human form, which he showed through his tactile figures.

My interest in classical Hellenistic sculpture lies in the history attached to it, ‘the ravages of time’, and the wars fought around it. Also the way sculptors repeatedly revert back to it as true sculpture.

I love museums as well, especially the old musty sort. There is an exoticism in places like that: a longing for a bygone age. I am interested in the fragmentary discovery and understanding history, so I think museums are exciting transient spaces full of mystery and discovery.

ahrodite study double

Do the paper drawings feed the physical process of making a sculpture?

The drawings are really beautiful. I started making them as plans for sculptures to understand the anatomy and form of classical sculptures. They are really just spruced up working plans, but I think that’s what’s attractive about them. I tried making sculptures directly from them but it was a complete failure so in a sense they are failures at working drawings. Again they were important for my process, especially as I was making work about existing work, it was important for me to understand the existing sculptures.

I also tried to convey the museum feel in them. They are displayed like old school posters or crumbling educational departments in museums. Places that explain history, like the classical sculptures I was looking at. They are objects, which represent an exotic bygone age, but essentially are just glorified rocks.

The Amazons1

What is next for Zoe Paul?

Well, its slow being out of school but I’m really excited to have been selected for ‘Future Map 09’, which is a selection of only a handful of graduating students from across University of the Arts London, of both graduates and post graduates. So that’s really exciting.

In terms of work I’m really excited about continuing with my idea of temporal exoticism and the allure objects hold. I was reading this amazing book this summer about a shipwreck, which was discovered off a Greek island in 1900. It was full of sculptures on their way to Rome during the Roman occupation of Greece in around 70BC. There are some amazing descriptions of the sculptures being all gnarled and eaten by the sea. I like the idea of these vast powerful sculptures lying rotting at the bottom with such a history attached to them. I want to make more tactile works now that show my process. I love the way Rebecca Warren’s figures do that.

Future Map 09 will be hosted by 20 Hoxton Square Projects and will run from the 25th November 2009.

This year the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2009 graces the walls of the Natural History Museum for another year and it’s safe to say this is one exhibition that cannot be missed. Owned by the museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, prostate the competition is one that prides itself on exposing and celebrating the diversity of life on the planet.

The room dedicated to this exhibiton is dimly lit and you discover that this is to make way for the photographs themselves. Each one is displayed on a screen, viagra 60mg illuminated from behind so that they stand as
The competiton is divided into categories, first showing the winner and then a selection of those that are highly recommended.

Under the heading of ‘Urban and Garden Wildlife’ I find the corresponding winner to be something of a stroke of genius. The entries are required to be poignant, beautiful or striking comopositions of wild animals or plants in urban or suburban settings. The judges look for uncommonly good images of common subjects. It’s easy to see why ‘Respect’ by Igor Shilpenok (Russia) was the judges favourite. The centre of the photo is a stage for a stand off – one small domestic cat against a considerably bigger wild fox. This is one cat that clearly has a ________ complex. There’s something quite triumphant about this scene. You feel a sense of jubilation in his victory over the intruder. Shilpenok was working as a ranger in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Kamchatka, Russia with his cat Ryska for company. He comments that, “One day Ryska, protecting me, ran to attack an approaching fox. The fox bottled it and Ryska instantly earned respect from the foxes – and me”.

In this exhibition, there are categories that are dedicated to the plant kingdom
pythia futuremap copy

In June 2009 Zoe Paul graduated from Camberwell BA Sculpture. Whilst at college Zoe participated in numerous shows around London from the group exhibition Factory at the James Taylor Gallery organised by Royal College MA Curation graduate Dean Kissick to ‘Between the Eyes’ at Coleman Road. Zoe Paul has recently been selected to participate in ‘Future Map 09’.

What is it in particular about sculpture that interests you?

I am interested in the form and mass that is sculpture. I like the way we as humans relate ourselves to objects through their three dimensionalism. We are given the option to walk around and view the object from multiple angles and vantage points, sildenafil creating our own image from that object. We judge the object as being larger or smaller than human scale and this plays a large role in our perception of the object.

DSCF1038

You have made numerous paintings, have interests crossed over from painting into sculpture?

I feel happier thinking in three dimensions and I have always felt more successful in making objects but I highly appreciate painting and drawing. It’s a very different way of thinking. I’ve done a fair amount of life drawing and painting; which I think has helped me to appreciate form.

I strongly believe in drawing, if not as a final out come, then as a practice to learn to see. I think as a sculptor it is important to learn to look at things and see how they work formally in order for you to understand them. I always think I can see things better after I draw from life because it forces me to look and not just glance. The art school in Athens I went to for a year before my degree in London provided amazing classical training. I definitely think it gave me a different perspective.

I am a bit shy to make paintings now because I feel like I expose too much of myself, but with sculptures I rely on the materials and the mass of the objects to defend themselves.

amazon boob

How do your sculptures develop through the design process?

For myself the making process is a vital part of how I develop an idea. I make a lot, a lot of which, doesn’t always work but I find the action useful. I try not to think of anything as a definitive piece, the process is important.

My work is frequently based around materials. By using impoverished materials I devalue the monumentalism classical sculpture holds. Making ‘Pythia’ was an incredibly labour intensive process. I relate the carving of the polystyrene armature and the precise measuring and cutting of each individual tile to the carving of ancient marbles. It was industrial and ordered. I made the sculptures imagining I was making an architectural fitting, similar to what classical sculptures were in their day. I also spent time in the British Museum taking photographs and working on these as drawings and sketches.

Do you start with an idea or a medium or are both equally important in your work. If this is a bit vague, I mean does the medium start the idea or does the idea influence the medium used?

I think the two go together, although I pay more attention to materials than I realize. I thought up ‘Sunset Island’ whilst in LA, I wanted to represent the crummy, grimy glamour of Hollywood with the cocktail sticks and the industrial fiberglass sphere. Materials make me think of ideas, my degree show work on temporal exoticism and classical Hellenistic sculpture developed from working with tiles, trawling the isles of hardware stores, and finding cheap marble effect ceramic tiles. This cheap marble effect alludes to the wealth represented by classical marbles.

GetAttachment.aspx

Do you prefer to work entirely on your own as you are creating a sculpture?

I need to think and write by myself, but its really boring working alone. Now I’ve finished college, my studio is really small, crammed and damp. I miss being able to find someone to get a coffee with, when I want a break.

Sculpture is a social process, I didn’t really paint at college because of the open studios and I need to be alone to paint, its much more personal. Sculpture, however, requires banter. Conversely I pretty much had to make my degree show piece, ‘Pythia’ entirely on my own. The tile cutter makes such an awful noise I was as good as exiled out the studios at college.

Rock and tuft

Who or what are your artistic inspirations

My biggest inspiration was going to Los Angeles last year when I interned as a studio assistant for Mindy Shapero. College was OK but working for Mindy made me really hungry to make and to be an artist. There was so much energy and exuberance in the approach to life. I realized that I could do it if I wanted it badly enough.

I met amazing artists out there, like Thomas Houseago. He was so inspirational and had so much energy.

I can’t help being inspired by greats such as Picasso and Brancusi. Recently I have been reading about Rodin’s love for Greek sculpture as it conveyed the ‘ravages of the time’ in its ‘fragmentary aspect’. Rodin was a pioneer of the existential being conveyed through representation of human form, which he showed through his tactile figures.

My interest in classical Hellenistic sculpture lies in the history attached to it, ‘the ravages of time’, and the wars fought around it. Also the way sculptors repeatedly revert back to it as true sculpture.

I love museums, especially the old musty sort. They contain an exoticism: a longing for a bygone age. I am interested in fragmentary discovery and understanding history, therefore museums are exciting transient spaces full of mystery and discovery.

ahrodite study double

Do the paper drawings feed the physical process of making a sculpture?

The drawings are really beautiful. I started making them as plans for sculptures to understand the anatomy and form of classical sculptures. Really, they are just spruced up working plans, but I think that’s what’s attractive about them. I tried making sculptures directly from them but it was a complete failure so in a sense they are failures at working drawings. Again they were important for my process, especially as I was making work about existing work, it was important for me to understand existing sculptures.

I tried to convey the museum feel in them. Displaying the images like old school posters or crumbling educational departments in museums. As museums attempt to explain history, the classical sculptures I was looking at. They are objects, which represent an exotic bygone age, but essentially are just glorified rocks

The Amazons1

What’s next for Zoe Paul?

I’m excited to have been selected for ‘Future Map 09’, a selection of a handful of graduating students from across the University of the Arts London, of both graduates and post graduates.

In terms of work I’m excited to continue my idea of temporal exoticism and the allure objects hold. I’ve been reading an amazing book about a shipwreck containing sculptures on their way to Rome during the Roman occupation of Greece around 70BC, discovered off a Greek island in 1900. The book delivers amazing descriptions of the sculptures being gnarled and eaten by the sea. I like the idea of these vast powerful sculptures rotting at the bottom with such history attached to them.

I would like to make more tactile works that show my process. I love the way Rebecca Warren’s figures do that.

Future Map 09 will be hosted by 20 Hoxton Square Projects and will run from the 25th November 2009.

Last week a group of 21 activists from around the country stormed Didcot Power Station in an awe inspiring action that managed to force the power company to switch from burning coal to gas, malady a much cleaner power source, decease dramatically reduce the output of the power station as well as inspiring protestors across the world.

did1

A group locked on to the coal conveyor belts halting the supply of coal to the furnace and at the same time 9 protestors scaled the 600 ft chimney, occupied a room and pitched tents next to the chimney flues. Unfortunately the plan to camp in the flues for a week was impossible as it became apparent that they were too hot too stay in for any long period of time.

Although the Didcot Power Station protest may ostensibly have come to a rather unsatisfactory and anticlimactic end, with the nine remaining protesters arrested when they descended last Wednesday having failed to disrupt power generation for a week as planned, the protesters achieved something more important in successfully raising more awareness of the threat of climate change.

did2

The group met at climate camp in London this year, and are not just an obscure group of radicals shrouded in secrecy, but just ordinary individuals from all sorts of trades and professions who felt compelled to do something. Initiatives for environmental action are constantly being developed by normal people who happen to meet, and agree that something needs to be done.

While the action did not gain quite the level of publicity it perhaps hoped for, given its dramatic and unusual nature, there was a reasonable degree of press coverage.

did4

What is surprising however, and perhaps indicative of heightened public concern regarding environmental issues, was that rather condemning the protest as the work of misguided hippies, coverage in the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, and even the Daily Mail seemed at worst objective, and at best sympathetic.

Although a mainstream newspaper clearly cannot condone ‘unlawful’ protests outright, the Guardian’s article condemning ‘punitive pre-charge bail conditions’, while not compromising its own position, showed a certain solidarity by emphasising the increasingly dubious actions of law-enforcers.

The article’s inflammatory title, ‘Didcot demonstration: Police use bail restrictions to stifle climate protest’ carefully negotiates a pro-environment position that put the actions of police, not protesters, in the spotlight.

did3
A previous action at Didcot

Of course, there will still be those who dismiss these facts as irrelevant, or outweighed by the jobs and electricity Didcot provides. But crucially debate is being provoked, and it is becoming increasingly clear that provocateurs are not extremists, they are people who feel that the current circumstances require extreme action. The demystification of environmental protest – making it seem more inclusive, distilling it down to an issue of personal choices just like any other political issue – will hopefully encourage others.

In a BBC article, John Rainford of RWE power is quoted as saying, “Sitting on top of a chimney isn’t going to affect climate change. The people who can – and do – really make a difference are the people at the bottom of the chimney – the power station workers. They are deeply passionate and absolutely committed to cutting emissions. These are the people who work in the community, live in the community and care about their community”. While it is true that sitting on a chimney did not stop climate change instantly and directly, there is more truth to his words than he knows. Protests are changing public opinion, and if wasn’t for public opinion there would be no call or incentive for a cut in emissions. It is small actions of the builders, receptionists and power station workers which together will determine the survival or demise of coal power in Britain.

Categories ,chimney, ,Climate Camp, ,coal, ,Didcot, ,environment, ,police, ,Power station, ,press, ,protest

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Amelia’s Magazine | Signs Of Revolt – Creative Resistance & Social Movements since Seattle

PLAS2

A cold November night and I journey to a very cosy Camden Barfly to view Plastiscines. This band are the latest export from the country who gave us Eric Cantona, medical Various nice cheeses and the lady who keeps Johnny Depp of the market. The venue is packed with what appears to be a very male dominated crowd. I wonder why this is? Oh right, view there are four stunning French girls (it was France by the way) about to come on stage. They may have come on stage looking like they were on a shoot for “Teen Vogue” but looks can be deceiving. Playing a pop/punk/rock blend of tracks that feature on “LP1” and forthcoming album “About Love” this grunge glam quartet well and truly showed that they are not just pretty faces.

plass 019

Top producer Butch Walker fell in love with the girls when he saw them perform a cover of Nancy Sinatra’sThese Boots”, store they seemed to have the same effect on the Camden crowd. Plastiscines definitely managed to put their own fresh stamp on it, whilst still being respectful to the original, a far cry from Jessica Simpson’s shambles of an attempt in 2005. Their angst anthem “Bitch”, which has recently featured on “Gossip Girl”, was a sandwiched nicely in the middle of the set to the responsive audience, closing down with current cute pop single “Barcelona”. I have rarely had “Barcelona” out of my head since I first heard it, not in a negative way, I want it there, I want to dance to it, I want to sing it and be part of this ridiculously cool band. Lead singer Katty invited those in the room to do just that as she announced that the girls needed some bitches on stage. There was no shortage of these as half the room piled on to join the group, some of them being bitches with beards. We were then treated to seconds of “Bitch”. Bridget Bardot-esk Katty launched herself in the audience and continued to sing “Bitch” to men who I’m imagining felt powerful mixture of intense excitement and terror. I would also if I was them, “ I’m a bitch when I brush my teeth” is as blunt and to the point as the lyrics get. “B.I.T.C.H” she continues just to spell it out and make it clear.

plass 045

As she made her way teasingly around the floor I noticed that her makeup was all still perfectly in place. How can this be so after performing such an energetic set? Surely it should have melted down her face which happens to the best of us just sitting on the tube never mind bouncing about for the best part of an hour?! This went for them all. Not a sweaty swept fringe in site, All of them looking naturally no less than perfect after a flawless set. They perhaps are a 00’s Boho version of Jem and The Holograms.

JEM

Majorly rocking out whilst still maintaining a chic exterior. While the cartoon ended around the time these four were born, The adventures of Plastiscines have only just begun, and I for one shall continue to watch.

Album “LP” and single “Barcelona” are available now.
Signs of Revolt is an exhibition celebrating the creative resistance of the past decade’s social movements. It’s an uplifting retrospective that marks the 10th anniversary of the protests that shut down the World Trade Organisation in Seattle.

sr1

Walking into the space at Truman Brewery you are met with an array of posters, ask pictures, colour design and documentation all every available wall, witty slogans and collages, videos to costumes and paraphernalia. A one-stop tour of global movements and actions, and a great insight for the passerby of the creative power of social resistance or a great retrospective for an activist well versed in the successes and failures of civil disobedience.

sr2

The exhibition inspires by focusing on all the direct actions from the diverse; capitalism vs. anarchism cricket matches or the vast array of propaganda posters from all the past movements and actions around the world.

Here are some of the groups, artists and disobedient folk you should really check out and get involved with.

1. Space Hijackers

sr3

Calling themselves a ‘dis-organisation of artistic and anti corporate activists’ space hijackers bring together a group intent on creating civil mischief. Their projects have included huge circle line tube parties, acquiring a tank and attempting to invade Europe’s largest arms fair, creating starbucks chaos and a huge range of other ingenious and daring feats to challenge the states authority and the status quo. They are meeting tonight, Thursday 19th, at the exhibition at 7pm and is open to everyone to get involved, well apart from undercover cops.

2. Camp for Climate Action

sr4

Check out the photographic road show that’s been touring the country at universities, talks, galleries and festivals over the past couple of years. Aiming to dispel some of the myths spread by the mainstream media and to encourage and inspire other to get involved. The photos document the climate camp actions over the past few years, explain how they happen and give an insight into the workings of a climate camp. Remember climate camp are putting on coaches at an activist cut price of £100 to Copenhagen.

3. Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

sr5

An affinity group of friends and activists intent on combining art with activism the ‘Lab of ii’ has been responsible for recruiting a rebel clown army, launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a power station to throwing snowballs at bankers. Lab of ii have also created ‘put the fun between your legs’ a bike making workshop in Bristol next week that aims to create a bike contraption to use in direct action at the Copenhagen summit in December.

4. Indymedia London

sr6

The website bringing together political active networks, collectives and individuals that help document and organise actions and events. Part of an ever-growing network around the world that lets you be the media, publish your own news stories and let everyone know about what’s really happening outside the mainstream. Indymedia have brought together a load of information and news footage at Signs of Revolt to check out.

5. Kennardphillipps

sr7

Working since the invasion of Iraq Kennardphillipps is a collaboration creating huge scale collages and designs that confront the issues of power and control across the globe. The work is made from a cross group of media, the street, gallery and newspapers and magazines that are brought together in workshops to produce these engaging and confrontational art pieces.

Signs of Revolt has also held daily workshops, films and speakers over the past week which aim to inspire and educate as well as creating some lively debate. The weeklong event is also about looking towards the future especially with the mass mobilisation towards the Copenhagen climate Change Summit where thousands of activists from around the world will descend on Denmark next month to hopefully create a social movement like no other.

sr8

Signs of Revolt is only on till the 22nd of November so you have a few days to get there, get inspired and hopefully add or join to the next decade of creative resistance, mischief and action to look towards a better world.

Categories ,activism, ,bike bloc, ,Climate Camp, ,copenhagen, ,copenhagen climate summit, ,exhibition, ,Kennardphillipps, ,Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, ,london indy media, ,protest movement, ,seattle, ,Signs of Revolt, ,space hyjackers, ,workshope

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Amelia’s Magazine | Climate Camp 2010 at the RBS HQ in Edinburgh: a Break the Banks action round up.

Climate Camp 2010-nature doesnt
All photography by Amelia Gregory unless otherwise stated.

Over the past few years I have become increasingly embedded in the process of Climate Camp, see so I am well aware that the run up to this year’s Climate Camp has been more fraught with difficulties than ever – but as a spectacularly open grassroots non-heirarchical direct action organisation we would be the first to acknowledge this fact. We argued long and hard about whether RBS was an appropriate target for this year’s activities, physician and we picked our spot without really checking in with Scottish activists who were not present at the meeting, information pills thereby alienating some of our allies… so it’s a testament to the movement we’ve created that I left the Edinburgh camp feeling that Climate Camp, whatever nebulous thing that might be, is stronger than ever. We may not have grown in numbers but there has been a definite increase in the quality of active participation and we are slowly becoming more diverse too – there was a notable improvement in our age, class and racial make up this year, though we still have a long way to go.

Climate Camp 2010-camp life
Climate Camp 2010-scene

And we were successful – we didn’t for one moment imagine that we would make the same kind of splash in the national media as we have in other more southern based years (journalists are notoriously bad at travelling for any kind of story: witness the lack of press surrounding our extremely successful Ratcliffe on Soar action in October 2009) but we certainly made big news in the Scottish press, we did loads of outreach and best of all WE GOT IN THE WAY. We shut shit down and generally made a nuisance of ourselves that served to highlight climate and community wrecking investments in tar sands, open cast coal and biofuels. We’ve cost RBS and the companies it funds a certain amount of money and reputation, and we’ve got people talking.

Climate Camp 2010-welcome
Climate Camp 2010-setting up site
Setting up site.

So, back to the beginning. I was part of the initial Land Grab on Wednesday evening…. which meant taking two days to get up to Scotland and not at any point giving away our whereabouts. On arrival at our destination we scrambled through fields in search of the huge seven tonne truck that transports our big marquee poles, already parked in the middle of the manicured lands that belong to the RBS HQ. From there I walked into the adjoining field and marvelled at our audacity, for we’ve never been this close to our target before. There it was, the HQ lit up like a giant christmas tree well into the night, rumoured to be so large that it supports its very own supermarket. It seemed almost impossible that with only a hundred people we might take this second field too, but take it we did because soon people were trundling around with wheelbarrows full of tat (an all encompassing word to describe all the stuff we need to run a camp). From the top of the man made mound we could see right into the glass walled HQ, where bored workers were no doubt entertained by us for a few days before RBS decreed they should work from home.

YouTube Preview Image

By the time I got up the next morning the site was already humming with activity and new campers who had joined us over the course of the night when they heard about our location via text and twitter. This year’s site, as well as being the cheekiest we have ever taken was also the most beautiful, and abundant with wildlife: mice, frogs and lots and lots of slugs. It’s long layout did however put paid to the permaculture plans we have adhered to in previous years, and necessitated a long walk from one end to the other.

Climate Camp 2010-set up

My role at Climate Camp has settled into a bit of a routine – taking photos, video and twittering. It leaves precious little time for physical work around site and I’m usually to be found in the media tent or rushing around on an action. We had incredibly bad reception on this site, and I soon became friendly with the Comms tent which was sited on the top of the hill and had a better 3G signal. For those of you who don’t know what I’m wittering on about, Comms refers to our defence and communications system which works by collating information from people on all the gates around site. It’s a 24 hour a day job and this year it was skill shared in a most impressive way for the first time.

Climate Camp 2010-media team
Some of the media team.

I think we’d all been fearful that this camp would be much less well attended than previous ones, but by Friday I estimate that there were almost 1000 people on site, and it felt as though they were all there for a purpose. At Blackheath last year we really focused on outreach and both that and our location ensured rather a lot of sightseeing which unfortunately meant that direct action took a major back seat to workshops. This time the workshops timetable was slimmer, and from early on there was a notable amount of small affinity groups planning direct action in the tall grass. This I think is a good development. And take direct action we did – every day. Here are some of the best actions I took part in:

Climate Camp 2010-refugee camp

1. Taking the land, obviously.
The biggest direct action of them all – it’s hard not to be nervous with an action like this on which the rest of Climate Camp depends. We stopped in at some charity shops for entertaining cut price CDs on our way northwards, and as we drove towards our swooping point we played the Star Wars theme tune at top volume. Despite our huge truck and noisy scrambling it took the police at least half an hour to arrive, by which time we were able to hold the space and had started erecting tents by torchlight. It did, however, mean that the advertised swoop the next day was a bit of a damp squib, and some of the participants must have felt a bit left out of all the excitement.

Climate Camp 2010-site take
Erecting the first marquees on site by torchlight.

2. Raising a Ruckus
On Friday we held a merry little dance parade around the RBS offices, culminating in an incursion into a conveniently open entrance where we jumped up and down in the doorway whilst security looked bemused and staff gazed down from the floors above. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, a lone activist had infiltrated the offices as a banker and stuck herself to a reception desk, where she berated RBS for agreeing to fund Vedanta’s mining activities on the sacred lands of the Dongria Kondh tribe in India. We later learnt that she had changed her name to Dongria Kondh by deed poll the week before, declaring that she would only change it back if RBS retracted funding. Fortunately it was announced this week that India has blocked the mining operation. Though I quite like Dongria Kondh as a name….

Climate Camp rouser
Climate Camp rouser door
YouTube Preview Image

3. A Lady Gaga tribute: the Dirty Oil dance action
Conscious of Climate Camp’s decision to descend on Scotland without much forethought about how we could support local struggles I volunteered to attend the solidarity demo against a new coal mine at Cousland, but then I was reminded that I had also promised to document my Green Kite Midnight friends’ musical action. Lady Gaga won out in the end. Standing inside a small candy striped marquee we learnt new lyrics to Poker Face, featuring the immortal lines:

It’s getting hot, the planet’s nearly shot
We’ll make them stop, we’re putting up a block

Tar sands is dirty oil
Can’t use my, can’t use my taxes no
To invest in dirty oil

Climate Camp 2010-gaga rehearsal
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil
Rehearsing dance moves and getting ready to leave.

By midday we were ready to take our act to the streets of Edinburgh. With black bin bag bows in hair and fluorescent waistcoats we marched with resolve towards the biggest branch of RBS on St Andrews Square…. to find it already closed. Closed by the threat of song and dance. Score! We then set off on a tour through the town centre, jumping an RBS fringe stage for a special ten minute non-sponsored rendition. You can watch this here. We taught some onlookers the dance moves, bumped into the Greenwash Guerillas en route and handed out loads of leaflets.

Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-on steps
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-fringe stage
Crowds watch us at the Fringe
Climate Camp 2010-fringe audience
and the Greenwash Guerillas…
Climate Camp 2010-Greenwash Guerillas

4. Sunday site incursion
I knew there were plans afoot but I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mass of people dancing towards me in white paper boiler suits. And then they carried on dancing their way over the bridge to RBS, pushing the police back with ease and racing around the corner towards an unguarded part of the RBS HQ. When I got there it became apparent that they had completely taken the police by surprise and several windows had been smashed as the morass propelled forward. For a short moment chaos reigned as the police tried and failed to contain the seething crowd (who needs Black Bloc when you’ve got White Bloc, as one twitterer noted) and they were successfully able to de-arrest several people.

RBS site incursion march
RBS site incursion
RBS site invasion tussle
RBS Sunday invasion

Unfortunately this short point of panic enabled the police to gain the upper hand, and if the intention had been to get in and hold the building we had lost the head start. After two arrests there was a brief stand off with police at the bridge and the action petered out, the white garbed frontline on the bridge replaced by a large white fluffy bunny. I kid thee not.

Climate Camp 2010-white bunny

At our evening plenary a dampener was put on the situation almost immediately. Unfortunately the action had been badly timed to coincide with a speech from our visiting tar sands activists, who had felt seriously disrespected by the disruption to their workshop. They were also uncomfortable with the apparent violence of smashing windows, as were a few others. Through skilful facilitation we were able to talk through these issues, with many good points being made that Climate Camp comprises a diverse range of people who use different tactics, and whilst we would never ever condone physical violence against people, corporate property is another matter altogether. All successful direct action campaigns have attacked physical infrastructure, from the Suffragettes to the 1990s road protest movement. Causing infrastructure damage hits a company where it hurts: their pockets.

Climate Camp 2010-meeting
An early site-wide meeting.

We’ve always been very careful with our language, although the media often insists on referring to us as “peaceful” or NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action). In another twist seasoned activists have levelled many criticisms at us over the past few years with regards to us being too media friendly. For many this action proved that we really are capable of doing more than the media stunts and banner drops of recent times. It was also acknowledged that whilst we could sympathise with the feelings of First Nations activists it could not dictate the way that Climate Camp works, and indeed whilst we should work hard at international bonds we should not deify indigenous peoples above our local communities. We finished the meeting with a euphoric group hug that seemed to express: Yes! We are powerful together! We can break through police lines and inflict serious physical damage to a building! With a bit more intent we could have got into the HQ and dug in for the duration: of that I have no doubt.

Climate Camp 2010-serving dinner
Serving dinner at the South Coast neighbourhood.

5. The RBS Trojan Pig leaking molasses outside Cairn Energy offices
At just past 9am I dropped my half drunk tea and ran full tilt out of the cafe where I had been sitting on Lothian Road. Ahead of me a group of people in black ceremoniously carried a large pink pig – eyes painted with the RBS logo – up the impressive granite steps of the offices for Cairn Energy, who received £117 million in loans from RBS last year, some of which helped them to start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland. Two activists sprayed molasses against the side of the building in decorative swirls as more molasses seeped out of the pig and down the steps. A security guard briefly looked on, but never moved the large pink carcass which was reported later that day as forlornly pushed aside on the steps. Ironically it is only because of climate change and melting ice that Cairn Energy are able to drill in the polar regions as new oil reserves are revealed. By coincidence a Greenpeace ship reached the drill rig on our day of action, where it was met by a Danish warship. It is hoped that lots of activists will join Crude Awakening, a day of mass action against oil supported by Climate Camp on Saturday October 16th in London.

Cairn Trojan Pig parade
Cairn Trojan Pig molasses
YouTube Preview Image

6. Shutting down Nicolson Street branch of RBS
The weather was not kind to us on our main day of action, and getting lost en route to my next destination didn’t help. By just after 10am I was soaked through to the skin. Across the entrance to Nicolson Street RBS three of my friends glued themselves together with green posters pinned to their fronts that said “Ask me why I won’t bank with RBS“. As customers arrived they engaged them in conversation and then let them duck under their arms. With musicians and a small gaggle of Lady Gaga impersonators I went inside to be greeted by an old man grumbling bad-temperedly at the counter. He then proceeded to watch several reprises of the Dirty Oil song and dance routine, by now familiar to all. Next up was a reinvigorated version of the Gloria Gaynor classic I Will Survive, and as we moved outside the police finally arrived. I went to upload some tweets and when I returned journalists and photographers were out in force and the branch had been closed. Later that day another bunch of activists dressed in bin bags and dripping in molasses closed down the same branch.

Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS
Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS 2

7. We’ve built a Rhino Siege Tower!
Yes really. At the top of the hill above RBS what looked like a watch tower had risen during the course of the camp, gaining painted corrugated metal sides and a roof. And perhaps best of all a huge paper mache Rhino head attached to it’s derriere. I got back from the mornings actions to find a huge gaggle of people surrounding the tower, all dressed in wonderful outfits, inspired by medieval battle, clowns, animals and pagan dress. And then we waited…. and waited… and joked about slow action being the new slow food movement. Finally, we were ready to roll. The siege tower was on wheels. And with people guiding it via a series of ropes and pulleys it began to inch it’s way around the wind break and down the hill as we all held our breath and prayed that it didn’t topple into the bank of photographers waiting below. This process took about four hours, by which time I’d long since stopped worrying that I would miss anything crucial every time I went to recharge my damn iphone again. Over at the bridge a series of mollassapaults were fired onto the HQ by black clad activists. And then as we finally crawled towards the gate the rain really set in. Dancing animals met lines of riot police and squirted silly string over their heads as the Siege Tower finally cleared a low hanging branch and the rhino headbutted a police van.

Climate Camp Rhino Seige Tower
Climate Camp 2010-scary clown
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-hits van

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line of riot cops so bemused. What the hell were we doing? On the side of the tower There Is No Planet B had been painted over at some point during the long journey to say There Is No Plan. My camera decided to complain about the incessant rain. It packed up. I decided to call it a day, and soon so did many soggy others. The Guardian’s live blog had long since stopped reporting on our actions of the day since most of them were done in the morning – including a very brilliant banner drop off the roof of Forth Energy in Leith in protest of a new and huge biomass scheme that would require the mass importation of vast quantities of wood chip.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-frontline
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-sillystring
mollassapault tim morozzo
The mollassapault. Photography by Tim Morozzo.

And so, we didn’t give the mainstream media the huge action they might have liked. Instead we gave them lots of small and effective affinity group actions across Edinburgh and beyond, as planned. Topped off with the most surreal action of them all – a Rhino Siege Tower that effectively closed down the RBS HQ merely through creative farce and the power of suggestion. Sometimes my heart is so full of love for the thing that is Climate Camp that it feels fit to burst.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino

Other highlights of this years’ camp included a storming ceilidh (apologies to the Scottish for making this word our own) with my band Green Kite Midnight, spoken word from Harry Giles, visits from Fringe comedians Albie Philbin Bowman and Josie Long, and dancing long into the night after our day of action. Despite all the trials and tribulations of being so involved with Climate Camp I can’t wait to see what we come up with next. Even if we didn’t Break the Banks you’ve got to admit it was a damn good slogan, and we’ve successfully managed to highlight the investment of our money in fossil fuels to a far wider public. Now we just need to change the system that encourages wanton consumption of fossil fuels to the wide scale detriment of the only planet we have to live on. Who’s up for helping out?

You can watch lots more of the videos that I took on my Qik channel here.

Climate Camp 2010-Albie Philbin Bowman
Albie Philbin Bowman performs for us.
See some of Josie Long’s performance on this link.

Many other inspiring actions happened across the course of the camp, but these did not include the supposed oil spill on the A8 on Monday morning, as press released by the police. Our targets have always been corporations and the government not innocent people, but isn’t it somehow predictable that the press picked up on the “oil spill” so relentlessly – happy to reel it off as fact without adequate research or proof. More on how the press have related to this year’s Climate Camp in my next blog post here.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos
A beautiful painted compost loo.
Climate Camp 2010-anarchist baby
Climate Camp 2010-RBS bridge
Climate Camp 2010-bunny

Categories ,Albie Philbin Bowman, ,Cairn Energy, ,Climate Camp, ,coal, ,comedy, ,Cousland, ,Crude Awakening, ,Direct Action, ,dirty oil, ,Dongria Kondh, ,edinburgh, ,Edinburgh Fringe, ,First Nations, ,Gloria Gaynor, ,Green Kite Midnight, ,Greenland, ,Greenpeace, ,Greenwash Guerillas, ,Guardian, ,Harry Giles, ,Josie Long, ,Lady Gaga, ,Nicolson Street, ,NVDA, ,Oily Gaga, ,police, ,Raising a Ruckus, ,Ratcliffe On Soar, ,RBS, ,RBS HQ, ,RBS Trojan Pig, ,Rhino Seige Tower, ,Riot police, ,Royal Bank of Scotland, ,Suffragettes, ,Tar Sands, ,Tim Morozzo, ,twitter, ,Vedanta

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Amelia’s Magazine | Earth Listings: 16th – 22nd November 2009

Cindy Crawford shoesHALL OF FAME EXHIBITION
10-18 NOVEMBER
BURLINGTON ARCADE, diagnosis PICCADILLY, online W1
FREE ENTRY
Essential for all fashion fanatics who’ve ever wanted to get a peek into the wardrobes of the rich and famous– now is your chance. Celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Kevin Spacey, Yasmin Le Bon and Cindy Crawford have donated their shoes to the Macmillan Cancer Trust ahead of the ‘In Their Shoes’ fundraising ball taking place next week.
To book tickets call 020 7840 4800 to book or alternatively visit the website to bid on your favourite pair of shoes.

exhibitors handmade in britainHANDMADE IN BRITAIN 09
11-14 NOVEMBER (11-6PM)
CHELSEA OLD TOWN HALL, 253 KING’S ROAD, SW3
£5 DAY ENTRY, £3 CONCESSIONS
Now in its third year, Handmade in Britain returns to London showcasing the brightest and most innovative talent in contemporary eco design. Whether you love fashion, textiles, jewellery, ceramics or furniture there is something for everyone with over 50 of the UK’s top designers and brands showcasing.

PF-penny-bazaar_1409880cM&S PENNY BAZAAR
13 NOVEMBER (9-8PM)
458 OXFORD STREET, W1
FREE ENTRY
Back by popular demand the M&S penny bazaar returns especially for Christmas. Marking the end of 2009’s 125th birthday celebrations the lovely chaps at M&S are reducing up to 15 items in stores across the UK. With all proceeds going to local charities this is a great day to stock up on treats including: Christmas socks, card games, children’s puzzles, handkerchiefs, money boxes, tea towels, mugs, notebooks, ties, knickers, key rings, chocolates and Christmas Yule logs.

header_gladragsGLADRAGS AND HANDBAGS FASHION SALE
13-15 NOVEMBER (FRI: 9-7PM, SAT: 10-5PM, SUN: 11-4PM)
MUSIC ROOMS, SOUTH MOLTON LANE, W1
£2 ENTRY
Held in conjunction with the Kids Company Charity this three day fashion extravaganza is a great place to pick up some bargains. With an array of clothes and accessories from some of fashion’s biggest names, including: Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Stella McCartney, Chloe and Luella this sounds like an unmissable event.

jimmychoo684x410JIMMY CHOO FOR H&M LAUNCH
14 NOVEMBER
FLAGSHIP STORES (10-8PM)
PRICES START AT £17.99 (ACCESSORIES), £49.99 (SHOES), £29.99 (CLOTHING)
This Saturday sees the launch of the highly anticipated Jimmy Choo diffusion line for High Street retailer H&M. The multi-faceted collection features iconic shoes and 80’s inspired womenswear in addition to sleek and sophisticated men’s suits.
Flagship stores selling the collection are: London; Regent St, Long Acre, Bond St, Brent Cross, High Street Kensington, Knightsbridge, Oxford Circus and White City. Other UK participating stores are located in: Birmingham, Kent, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle.

CELEBRITY CAR BOOT SALE
15 NOVEMBER (12-4PM)
1ST FLOOR, SELFRIDGES CAR PARK, OXFORD STREET, W1
£5 ENTRY, UNDER 12’S GO FREE
For the first time ever Selfridges are hosting a celebrity car boot sale in conjunction with Mothers4Children this Sunday. Charity patrons such as Liz Hurley, Claudia Schiffer, Yasmin Le Bon, Trinny Woodall and Louise Redknapp have enlisted their celebrity friends to not only donate their wares for this great cause but also to act as stall holders for the duration of the event. With 100% of profits going to the Mothers4Children charity this is a great way to donate and do some A-list celebrity spotting at the same time.
Cindy Crawford shoes

Image courtesy of ‘Hall of Fame’.

HALL OF FAME EXHIBITION
10-18 NOVEMBER
BURLINGTON ARCADE, cialis 40mg PICCADILLY, pilule W1
FREE ENTRY
Essential for all fashion fanatics who’ve ever wanted to get a peek into the wardrobes of the rich and famous– now is your chance. Celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Kevin Spacey, Yasmin Le Bon and Cindy Crawford have donated their shoes to the Macmillan Cancer Trust ahead of the ‘In Their Shoes’ fundraising ball taking place next week.
To book tickets call 020 7840 4800 to book or alternatively visit the website to bid on your favourite pair of shoes.

exhibitors handmade in britainImage courtesy of  Handmade in Britain.

HANDMADE IN BRITAIN 09
11-14 NOVEMBER (11-6PM)
CHELSEA OLD TOWN HALL, 253 KING’S ROAD, SW3
£5 DAY ENTRY, £3 CONCESSIONS
Now in its third year, Handmade in Britain returns to London showcasing the brightest and most innovative talent in contemporary eco design. Whether you love fashion, textiles, jewellery, ceramics or furniture there is something for everyone with over 50 of the UK’s top designers and brands showcasing.

PF-penny-bazaar_1409880cImage courtesy of Marks & Spencer.

M&S PENNY BAZAAR
13 NOVEMBER (9-8PM)
458 OXFORD STREET, W1
FREE ENTRY
Back by popular demand the M&S penny bazaar returns especially for Christmas. Marking the end of 2009’s 125th birthday celebrations the lovely chaps at M&S are reducing up to 15 items in stores across the UK. With all proceeds going to local charities this is a great day to stock up on treats including: Christmas socks, card games, children’s puzzles, handkerchiefs, money boxes, tea towels, mugs, notebooks, ties, knickers, key rings, chocolates and Christmas Yule logs.

header_gladragsImage courtesy of Gladrags and Handbags.

GLADRAGS AND HANDBAGS FASHION SALE
13-15 NOVEMBER (FRI: 9-7PM, SAT: 10-5PM, SUN: 11-4PM)
MUSIC ROOMS, SOUTH MOLTON LANE, W1
£2 ENTRY
Held in conjunction with the Kids Company Charity this three day fashion extravaganza is a great place to pick up some bargains. With an array of clothes and accessories from some of fashion’s biggest names, including: Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Stella McCartney, Chloe and Luella this sounds like an unmissable event.

jimmychoo684x410Image courtesy of H&M.

JIMMY CHOO FOR H&M LAUNCH
14 NOVEMBER
FLAGSHIP STORES (10-8PM)
PRICES START AT £17.99 (ACCESSORIES), £49.99 (SHOES), £29.99 (CLOTHING)
This Saturday sees the launch of the highly anticipated Jimmy Choo diffusion line for High Street retailer H&M. The multi-faceted collection features iconic shoes and 80’s inspired womenswear in addition to sleek and sophisticated men’s suits.
Flagship stores selling the collection are: London; Regent St, Long Acre, Bond St, Brent Cross, High Street Kensington, Knightsbridge, Oxford Circus and White City. Other UK participating stores are located in: Birmingham, Kent, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle.

Selfridges charity saleImage courtesy of Selfridges.

CELEBRITY CAR BOOT SALE
15 NOVEMBER (12-4PM)
1ST FLOOR, SELFRIDGES CAR PARK, OXFORD STREET, W1
£5 ENTRY, UNDER 12’S GO FREE
For the first time ever Selfridges are hosting a celebrity car boot sale in conjunction with Mothers4Children this Sunday. Charity patrons such as Liz Hurley, Claudia Schiffer, Yasmin Le Bon, Trinny Woodall and Louise Redknapp have enlisted their celebrity friends to not only donate their wares for this great cause but also to act as stall holders for the duration of the event. With 100% of profits going to the Mothers4Children charity this is a great way to donate and do some A-list celebrity spotting at the same time.
Cindy Crawford shoes

Image courtesy of ‘Hall of Fame’.

HALL OF FAME EXHIBITION
10-18 NOVEMBER
BURLINGTON ARCADE, sale PICCADILLY, cialis 40mg W1
FREE ENTRY
Essential for all fashion fanatics who’ve ever wanted to get a peek into the wardrobes of the rich and famous– now is your chance. Celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Kevin Spacey, Yasmin Le Bon and Cindy Crawford have donated their shoes to the Macmillan Cancer Trust ahead of the ‘In Their Shoes’ fundraising ball taking place next week.
To book tickets call 020 7840 4800 to book or alternatively visit the website to bid on your favourite pair of shoes.

exhibitors handmade in britain  Image courtesy of  Handmade in Britain.

HANDMADE IN BRITAIN 09
11-14 NOVEMBER (11-6PM)
CHELSEA OLD TOWN HALL, 253 KING’S ROAD, SW3
£5 DAY ENTRY, £3 CONCESSIONS
Now in its third year, Handmade in Britain returns to London showcasing the brightest and most innovative talent in contemporary eco design. Whether you love fashion, textiles, jewellery, ceramics or furniture there is something for everyone with over 50 of the UK’s top designers and brands showcasing.

PF-penny-bazaar_1409880cImage courtesy of Marks & Spencer.

M&S PENNY BAZAAR
13 NOVEMBER (9-8PM)
458 OXFORD STREET, W1
FREE ENTRY
Back by popular demand the M&S penny bazaar returns especially for Christmas. Marking the end of 2009’s 125th birthday celebrations the lovely chaps at M&S are reducing up to 15 items in stores across the UK. With all proceeds going to local charities this is a great day to stock up on treats including: Christmas socks, card games, children’s puzzles, handkerchiefs, money boxes, tea towels, mugs, notebooks, ties, knickers, key rings, chocolates and Christmas Yule logs.

header_gladragsImage courtesy of Gladrags and Handbags.

GLADRAGS AND HANDBAGS FASHION SALE
13-15 NOVEMBER (FRI: 9-7PM, SAT: 10-5PM, SUN: 11-4PM)
MUSIC ROOMS, SOUTH MOLTON LANE, W1
£2 ENTRY
Held in conjunction with the Kids Company Charity this three day fashion extravaganza is a great place to pick up some bargains. With an array of clothes and accessories from some of fashion’s biggest names, including: Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Stella McCartney, Chloe and Luella this sounds like an unmissable event.

jimmychoo684x410Image courtesy of H&M.

JIMMY CHOO FOR H&M LAUNCH
14 NOVEMBER
FLAGSHIP STORES (10-8PM)
PRICES START AT £17.99 (ACCESSORIES), £49.99 (SHOES), £29.99 (CLOTHING)
This Saturday sees the launch of the highly anticipated Jimmy Choo diffusion line for High Street retailer H&M. The multi-faceted collection features iconic shoes and 80’s inspired womenswear in addition to sleek and sophisticated men’s suits.
Flagship stores selling the collection are: London; Regent St, Long Acre, Bond St, Brent Cross, High Street Kensington, Knightsbridge, Oxford Circus and White City. Other UK participating stores are located in: Birmingham, Kent, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle.

Selfridges charity saleImage courtesy of Selfridges.

CELEBRITY CAR BOOT SALE
15 NOVEMBER (12-4PM)
1ST FLOOR, SELFRIDGES CAR PARK, OXFORD STREET, W1
£5 ENTRY, UNDER 12’S GO FREE
For the first time ever Selfridges are hosting a celebrity car boot sale in conjunction with Mothers4Children this Sunday. Charity patrons such as Liz Hurley, Claudia Schiffer, Yasmin Le Bon, Trinny Woodall and Louise Redknapp have enlisted their celebrity friends to not only donate their wares for this great cause but also to act as stall holders for the duration of the event. With 100% of profits going to the Mothers4Children charity this is a great way to donate and do some A-list celebrity spotting at the same time.
Time to put some pressure on RBS, cheap start preparing for Copenhagen and get engaged with some of the most important issues of our time!

RBS Tar Sands Action
Tuesday 17th November 2009

EL

Representatives from First Nation communities are coming all the way from Canada to hand RBS executives a letter to ask them to STOP financing tar sands. Show solidarity with the indigenous people of Canada by joining them to take action against the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Meeting outside Liverpool Street tube Station at 2pm. Bring old tights, store and clothes you don’t mind getting a little messy. Fake blood a plenty apparently!

Simon Hughes is also hosting a meeting with the First Nation activists in the Houses of Parliament at 10:00 am. All are welcome. Please come, viagra 40mg and email your MP through www.writetothem.com asking them to meet you there.

Time: 2pm
Venue: Liverpool Street Tube
Website: http://www.facebook.com/event

Age of Stupid screening
Tuesday 17th November 2009

el2

The Campaign against Climate Change in association with Amnesty International present a screening of the film The Age of Stupid at The Human Rights Action Centre. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with speakers including Phil Thornhill and Abi Edgar from the Campaign against Climate Change.
Tickets must be booked through the Amnesty International website.

Time: 6:30pm
Venue: The Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3EA
Contacts: Paul Eagle
Website: www.amnesty.org.uk/eventsdetails.asp?ID=1353

Earthwatch debate: From Tsunami to Drought
Thursday 19 November 2009

el4

Chaired by award-winning broadcaster and radio and television presenter, Andrea Catherwood, four enterprising speakers will outline their ingenious solutions to a looming crisis, before being interrogated Dragon’s Den style by a panel of experts. Entry is by ticket only. Free to students and current Earthwatch donors; otherwise a donation will be requested on the door. The debate will be followed by an optional buffet supper with wine, £25.

?Time: 7pm-9pm
Venue: Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR
Website: www.earthwatch.org/europe

Copenhagen Benefit Party
Thursday 19th November 2009

This Thursday a night of Dj’s are putting on some tunes at Passing Clouds, This event hopes to raise money to fund Activism Costs whilst out there so we can ensure each and everyone of us is able to come together and unite in Copenhagen. £5 on the door
Time: 8pm
Venue: Passing Clouds, 440 Kingsland Road, Dalston, London E8

Shared Planet
Saturday 20th-22nd November 2009

el3

Join hundreds of young people to get informed, learn skills and share ideas to tackle the problems facing our generation. The evnent offers the chance to come together with young people from all over the UK. Learn skills, find positive solutions and hold our leaders to account for a just and sustainable future for our generation. There will also be speakers, workshops, debates, films and stalls.

Venue: University of Manchester & Manchester Metropolitan
Website: http://peopleandplanet.org/

Operation Bike Block opens
Tuesday 17th – Sun 22 November 2009

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination and Climate Camp are plotting together to design and build a new tool of civil disobedience for the RECLAIM POWER mobilisations taking place in Copenhagen, during the UN climate summit in December. Made from hundreds of recycled bikes, The Bike Bloc will merge device of mass transportation and pedal powered resistance machine, postcapitalist bike gang and art bike carnival. The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination’s installation is open throughout the week in preparation for the following week’s workshops. Visitors are invited to start imagining their own rebel bike contraptions and leave their plans and sketches in the space.

Time 10am – 6pm
Venue: Arnolfini 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA
Website: http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/

Categories ,Age of Stupid, ,Amnesty International, ,arnolfini, ,bike bloc, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Change, ,community, ,copenhagen, ,Earthwatch, ,First nation, ,listings, ,passing clouds, ,RBS, ,shared planet, ,The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

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Amelia’s Magazine | Climate Camp 2010: Twitter Backfires… or does it?

Climate Camp 2010-serving dinner
Climate Camp 2010-nature doesnt
All photography by Amelia Gregory unless otherwise stated.

Over the past few years I have become increasingly embedded in the process of Climate Camp, web so I am well aware that the run up to this year’s Climate Camp has been more fraught with difficulties than ever – but as a spectacularly open grassroots non-heirarchical direct action organisation we would be the first to acknowledge this fact. We argued long and hard about whether RBS was an appropriate target for this year’s activities, case and we picked our spot without really checking in with Scottish activists who were not present at the meeting, website like this thereby alienating some of our allies… so it’s a testament to the movement we’ve created that I left the Edinburgh camp feeling that Climate Camp, whatever nebulous thing that might be, is stronger than ever. We may not have grown in numbers but there has been a definite increase in the quality of active participation and we are slowly becoming more diverse too – there was a notable improvement in our age, class and racial make up this year, though we still have a long way to go.

Climate Camp 2010-camp life
Climate Camp 2010-scene

And we were successful – we didn’t for one moment imagine that we would make the same kind of splash in the national media as we have in other more southern based years (journalists are notoriously bad at travelling for any kind of story: witness the lack of press surrounding our extremely successful Ratcliffe on Soar action in October 2009) but we certainly made big news in the Scottish press, we did loads of outreach and best of all WE GOT IN THE WAY. We shut shit down and generally made a nuisance of ourselves that served to highlight climate and community wrecking investments in tar sands, open cast coal and biofuels. We’ve cost RBS and the companies it funds a certain amount of money and reputation, and we’ve got people talking.

Climate Camp 2010-welcome
Climate Camp 2010-setting up site
Setting up site.

So, back to the beginning. I was part of the initial Land Grab on Wednesday evening…. which meant taking two days to get up to Scotland and not at any point giving away our whereabouts. On arrival at our destination we scrambled through fields in search of the huge seven tonne truck that transports our big marquee poles, already parked in the middle of the manicured lands that belong to the RBS HQ. From there I walked into the adjoining field and marvelled at our audacity, for we’ve never been this close to our target before. There it was, the HQ lit up like a giant christmas tree well into the night, rumoured to be so large that it supports its very own supermarket. It seemed almost impossible that with only a hundred people we might take this second field too, but take it we did because soon people were trundling around with wheelbarrows full of tat (an all encompassing word to describe all the stuff we need to run a camp). From the top of the man made mound we could see right into the glass walled HQ, where bored workers were no doubt entertained by us for a few days before RBS decreed they should work from home.

YouTube Preview Image

By the time I got up the next morning the site was already humming with activity and new campers who had joined us over the course of the night when they heard about our location via text and twitter. This year’s site, as well as being the cheekiest we have ever taken was also the most beautiful, and abundant with wildlife: mice, frogs and lots and lots of slugs. It’s long layout did however put paid to the permaculture plans we have adhered to in previous years, and necessitated a long walk from one end to the other.

Climate Camp 2010-set up

My role at Climate Camp has settled into a bit of a routine – taking photos, video and twittering. It leaves precious little time for physical work around site and I’m usually to be found in the media tent or rushing around on an action. We had incredibly bad reception on this site, and I soon became friendly with the Comms tent which was sited on the top of the hill and had a better 3G signal. For those of you who don’t know what I’m wittering on about, Comms refers to our defence and communications system which works by collating information from people on all the gates around site. It’s a 24 hour a day job and this year it was skill shared in a most impressive way for the first time.

Climate Camp 2010-media team
Some of the media team.

I think we’d all been fearful that this camp would be much less well attended than previous ones, but by Friday I estimate that there were almost 1000 people on site, and it felt as though they were all there for a purpose. At Blackheath last year we really focused on outreach and both that and our location ensured rather a lot of sightseeing which unfortunately meant that direct action took a major back seat to workshops. This time the workshops timetable was slimmer, and from early on there was a notable amount of small affinity groups planning direct action in the tall grass. This I think is a good development. And take direct action we did – every day. Here are some of the best actions I took part in:

Climate Camp 2010-refugee camp

1. Taking the land, obviously.
The biggest direct action of them all – it’s hard not to be nervous with an action like this on which the rest of Climate Camp depends. We stopped in at some charity shops for entertaining cut price CDs on our way northwards, and as we drove towards our swooping point we played the Star Wars theme tune at top volume. Despite our huge truck and noisy scrambling it took the police at least half an hour to arrive, by which time we were able to hold the space and had started erecting tents by torchlight. It did, however, mean that the advertised swoop the next day was a bit of a damp squib, and some of the participants must have felt a bit left out of all the excitement.

Climate Camp 2010-site take
Erecting the first marquees on site by torchlight.

2. Raising a Ruckus
On Friday we held a merry little dance parade around the RBS offices, culminating in an incursion into a conveniently open entrance where we jumped up and down in the doorway whilst security looked bemused and staff gazed down from the floors above. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, a lone activist had infiltrated the offices as a banker and stuck herself to a reception desk, where she berated RBS for agreeing to fund Vedanta’s mining activities on the sacred lands of the Dongria Kondh tribe in India. We later learnt that she had changed her name to Dongria Kondh by deed poll the week before, declaring that she would only change it back if RBS retracted funding. Fortunately it was announced this week that India has blocked the mining operation. Though I quite like Dongria Kondh as a name….

Climate Camp rouser
Climate Camp rouser door
YouTube Preview Image

3. A Lady Gaga tribute: the Dirty Oil dance action
Conscious of Climate Camp’s decision to descend on Scotland without much forethought about how we could support local struggles I volunteered to attend the solidarity demo against a new coal mine at Cousland, but then I was reminded that I had also promised to document my Green Kite Midnight friends’ musical action. Lady Gaga won out in the end. Standing inside a small candy striped marquee we learnt new lyrics to Poker Face, featuring the immortal lines:

It’s getting hot, the planet’s nearly shot
We’ll make them stop, we’re putting up a block

Tar sands is dirty oil
Can’t use my, can’t use my taxes no
To invest in dirty oil

Climate Camp 2010-gaga rehearsal
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil
Rehearsing dance moves and getting ready to leave.

By midday we were ready to take our act to the streets of Edinburgh. With black bin bag bows in hair and fluorescent waistcoats we marched with resolve towards the biggest branch of RBS on St Andrews Square…. to find it already closed. Closed by the threat of song and dance. Score! We then set off on a tour through the town centre, jumping an RBS fringe stage for a special ten minute non-sponsored rendition. You can watch this here. We taught some onlookers the dance moves, bumped into the Greenwash Guerillas en route and handed out loads of leaflets.

Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-on steps
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-fringe stage
Crowds watch us at the Fringe
Climate Camp 2010-fringe audience
and the Greenwash Guerillas…
Climate Camp 2010-Greenwash Guerillas

4. Sunday site incursion
I knew there were plans afoot but I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mass of people dancing towards me in white paper boiler suits. And then they carried on dancing their way over the bridge to RBS, pushing the police back with ease and racing around the corner towards an unguarded part of the RBS HQ. When I got there it became apparent that they had completely taken the police by surprise and several windows had been smashed as the morass propelled forward. For a short moment chaos reigned as the police tried and failed to contain the seething crowd (who needs Black Bloc when you’ve got White Bloc, as one twitterer noted) and they were successfully able to de-arrest several people.

RBS site incursion march
RBS site incursion
RBS site invasion tussle
RBS Sunday invasion

Unfortunately this short point of panic enabled the police to gain the upper hand, and if the intention had been to get in and hold the building we had lost the head start. After two arrests there was a brief stand off with police at the bridge and the action petered out, the white garbed frontline on the bridge replaced by a large white fluffy bunny. I kid thee not.

Climate Camp 2010-white bunny

At our evening plenary a dampener was put on the situation almost immediately. Unfortunately the action had been badly timed to coincide with a speech from our visiting tar sands activists, who had felt seriously disrespected by the disruption to their workshop. They were also uncomfortable with the apparent violence of smashing windows, as were a few others. Through skilful facilitation we were able to talk through these issues, with many good points being made that Climate Camp comprises a diverse range of people who use different tactics, and whilst we would never ever condone physical violence against people, corporate property is another matter altogether. All successful direct action campaigns have attacked physical infrastructure, from the Suffragettes to the 1990s road protest movement. Causing infrastructure damage hits a company where it hurts: their pockets.

Climate Camp 2010-meeting
An early site-wide meeting.

We’ve always been very careful with our language, although the media often insists on referring to us as “peaceful” or NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action). In another twist seasoned activists have levelled many criticisms at us over the past few years with regards to us being too media friendly. For many this action proved that we really are capable of doing more than the media stunts and banner drops of recent times. It was also acknowledged that whilst we could sympathise with the feelings of First Nations activists it could not dictate the way that Climate Camp works, and indeed whilst we should work hard at international bonds we should not deify indigenous peoples above our local communities. We finished the meeting with a euphoric group hug that seemed to express: Yes! We are powerful together! We can break through police lines and inflict serious physical damage to a building! With a bit more intent we could have got into the HQ and dug in for the duration: of that I have no doubt.

5. The RBS Trojan Pig leaking molasses outside Cairn Energy offices
At just past 9am I dropped my half drunk tea and ran full tilt out of the cafe where I had been sitting on Lothian Road. Ahead of me a group of people in black ceremoniously carried a large pink pig – eyes painted with the RBS logo – up the impressive granite steps of the offices for Cairn Energy, who received £117 million in loans from RBS last year, some of which helped them to start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland. Two activists sprayed molasses against the side of the building in decorative swirls as more molasses seeped out of the pig and down the steps. A security guard briefly looked on, but never moved the large pink carcass which was reported later that day as forlornly pushed aside on the steps. Ironically it is only because of climate change and melting ice that Cairn Energy are able to drill in the polar regions as new oil reserves are revealed. By coincidence a Greenpeace ship reached the drill rig on our day of action, where it was met by a Danish warship. It is hoped that lots of activists will join Crude Awakening, a day of mass action against oil supported by Climate Camp on Saturday October 16th in London.

Cairn Trojan Pig parade
Cairn Trojan Pig molasses
YouTube Preview Image

6. Shutting down Nicolson Street branch of RBS
The weather was not kind to us on our main day of action, and getting lost en route to my next destination didn’t help. By just after 10am I was soaked through to the skin. Across the entrance to Nicolson Street RBS three of my friends glued themselves together with green posters pinned to their fronts that said “Ask me why I won’t bank with RBS“. As customers arrived they engaged them in conversation and then let them duck under their arms. With musicians and a small gaggle of Lady Gaga impersonators I went inside to be greeted by an old man grumbling bad-temperedly at the counter. He then proceeded to watch several reprises of the Dirty Oil song and dance routine, by now familiar to all. Next up was a reinvigorated version of the Gloria Gaynor classic I Will Survive, and as we moved outside the police finally arrived. I went to upload some tweets and when I returned journalists and photographers were out in force and the branch had been closed. Later that day another bunch of activists dressed in bin bags and dripping in molasses closed down the same branch.

Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS
Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS 2

7. We’ve built a Rhino Siege Tower!
Yes really. At the top of the hill above RBS what looked like a watch tower had risen during the course of the camp, gaining painted corrugated metal sides and a roof. And perhaps best of all a huge paper mache Rhino head attached to it’s derriere. I got back from the mornings actions to find a huge gaggle of people surrounding the tower, all dressed in wonderful outfits, inspired by medieval battle, clowns, animals and pagan dress. And then we waited…. and waited… and joked about slow action being the new slow food movement. Finally, we were ready to roll. The siege tower was on wheels. And with people guiding it via a series of ropes and pulleys it began to inch it’s way around the wind break and down the hill as we all held our breath and prayed that it didn’t topple into the bank of photographers waiting below. This process took about four hours, by which time I’d long since stopped worrying that I would miss anything crucial every time I went to recharge my damn iphone again. Over at the bridge a series of mollassapaults were fired onto the HQ by black clad activists. And then as we finally crawled towards the gate the rain really set in. Dancing animals met lines of riot police and squirted silly string over their heads as the Siege Tower finally cleared a low hanging branch and the rhino headbutted a police van.

Climate Camp Rhino Seige Tower
Climate Camp 2010-scary clown
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-hits van

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line of riot cops so bemused. What the hell were we doing? On the side of the tower There Is No Planet B had been painted over at some point during the long journey to say There Is No Plan. My camera decided to complain about the incessant rain. It packed up. I decided to call it a day, and soon so did many soggy others. The Guardian’s live blog had long since stopped reporting on our actions of the day since most of them were done in the morning – including a very brilliant banner drop off the roof of Forth Energy in Leith in protest of a new and huge biomass scheme that would require the mass importation of vast quantities of wood chip.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-frontline
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-sillystring
mollassapault tim morozzo
The mollassapault. Photography by Tim Morozzo.

And so, we didn’t give the mainstream media the huge action they might have liked. Instead we gave them lots of small and effective affinity group actions across Edinburgh and beyond, as planned. Topped off with the most surreal action of them all – a Rhino Siege Tower that effectively closed down the RBS HQ merely through creative farce and the power of suggestion. Sometimes my heart is so full of love for the thing that is Climate Camp that it feels fit to burst.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino

Other highlights of this years’ camp included a storming ceilidh (apologies to the Scottish for making this word our own) with my band Green Kite Midnight, spoken word from Harry Giles, visits from Fringe comedians Albie Philbin Bowman and Josie Long, and dancing long into the night after our day of action. Despite all the trials and tribulations of being so involved with Climate Camp I can’t wait to see what we come up with next. Even if we didn’t Break the Banks you’ve got to admit it was a damn good slogan, and we’ve successfully managed to highlight the investment of our money in fossil fuels to a far wider public. Now we just need to change the system that encourages wanton consumption of fossil fuels to the wide scale detriment of the only planet we have to live on. Who’s up for helping out?

You can watch lots more of the videos that I took on my Qik channel here.

Climate Camp 2010-Albie Philbin Bowman
Albie Philbin Bowman performs for us.

Many other inspiring actions happened across the course of the camp, but these did not include the supposed oil spill on the A8 on Monday morning, as press released by the police. Our targets have always been corporations and the government not innocent people, but isn’t it somehow predictable that the press picked up on the “oil spill” so relentlessly – happy to reel it off as fact without adequate research or proof. More on how the press have related to this year’s Climate Camp in my next blog post.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos
A beautiful painted compost loo.
Climate Camp 2010-anarchist baby
Climate Camp 2010-RBS bridge
Climate Camp 2010-bunny

Back in 2007, approved experimental hip hop pioneer Flying Lotus released the Reset EP, remedy which was met with critical acclaim largely due to the outstanding track Tea Leaf Dancers. The stunning fusion of glitchy hip hop and progressive soul remains the LA producer’s most popular song to date, thanks in no small part to a stunning vocal accompaniment that gave the track a melancholy, love-ridden feel. Those sultry, elegiac vocals were provided by London born singer-songwriter Andreya Triana and this year marks the release of her exceptional debut album Lost Where I Belong.
Triana began her musical journey at the age of fourteen when her family moved from south east London to the West Midlands, a move that that left her feeling cut off from society. “I grew up in Brixton,” begins the singer. “It was so culturally diverse, and then I moved to a predominantly white, middle class area so I felt quite isolated. I just started spending a lot of time in my room, writing poetry and making songs.”
After years of honing her song writing abilities, good fortune shone down on Triana when she was selected from thousands of applicants to attend the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy. “I became obsessed with getting in,” says Triana, with wide eyed excitement that suggests she is still in mild disbelief that she was chosen. “When I found out I got in I screamed the house down!”

It was here that Triana met up with Flying Lotus and the duo created what would become Tea Leaf Dancers, even though she had no idea who she was actually working with at the time. “I didn’t really know anything about his music,” admits Triana. “It’s crazy thinking about it all of these years later. There were about thirty of us collaborating and that was only one of hundreds of collaborations.”
Despite the success of Tea Leaf Dancers, Triana would not get the opportunity to prove her worth as a solo artist until several years later when a chance meeting with downtempo trip hop artist Bonobo changed her life forever. “Bonobo and I had a lot of mutual friends,” says the singer, now residing in Brighton. “I heard that he needed a singer for one of his tracks, I came on board and it just developed from there. I wasn’t really that familiar with his music.”
The result was The Keeper, a beautifully laid back soul classic that is reminiscent of Jill Scott at her most poignant. This collaboration would develop into a beautiful working relationship where the pair would bounce ideas off one another until each lovingly-crafted track on Triana’s debut album was complete. “I wrote the songs with a guitar and I would come up with the harmonies,” she advises. “With Bonobo, it’s like I brought the bare bones and he brought them to life. It was really fun.”
Even though Triana has been fortunate enough to work with two of the world’s leading electronic music producers, she is adamant that both happened as a result of good luck. “None of it was pre-determined,” states Triana. “I didn’t work with Bonobo because he is a massive producer. It was because he was a good friend and I feel really comfortable with him.”

In person, Triana is every bit as captivating and endearing as the music she creates. Taking a break from signing promotional copies of Lost Where I Belong in the Ninja Tune headquarters, the singer advises: “The whole time I was doing the album, I was just praying that it would touch people. It’s nice when people come up to me and tell me that they really felt a certain song.”
Triana’s breathtaking brand of neo soul seems destined to captivate audiences in dimly lit, basement jazz bars throughout the world and her abstract lyricism means that her music has the ability to take on many different meanings. With over nine thousand followers on Myspace, Triana has over double the amount of fans as label mate and 2009 Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle, and this is before her album has even been released. This beautiful lady seems to be on the verge of a cult phenomenon.
Lost Where I Belong is out now via Ninja Tune.

Climate Camp 2010-nature doesnt
All photography by Amelia Gregory unless otherwise stated.

Over the past few years I have become increasingly embedded in the process of Climate Camp, page so I am well aware that the run up to this year’s Climate Camp has been more fraught with difficulties than ever – but as a spectacularly open grassroots non-heirarchical direct action organisation we would be the first to acknowledge this fact. We argued long and hard about whether RBS was an appropriate target for this year’s activities, pharmacy and we picked our spot without really checking in with Scottish activists who were not present at the meeting, nurse thereby alienating some of our allies… so it’s a testament to the movement we’ve created that I left the Edinburgh camp feeling that Climate Camp, whatever nebulous thing that might be, is stronger than ever. We may not have grown in numbers but there has been a definite increase in the quality of active participation and we are slowly becoming more diverse too – there was a notable improvement in our age, class and racial make up this year, though we still have a long way to go.

Climate Camp 2010-camp life
Climate Camp 2010-scene

And we were successful – we didn’t for one moment imagine that we would make the same kind of splash in the national media as we have in other more southern based years (journalists are notoriously bad at travelling for any kind of story: witness the lack of press surrounding our extremely successful Ratcliffe on Soar action in October 2009) but we certainly made big news in the Scottish press, we did loads of outreach and best of all WE GOT IN THE WAY. We shut shit down and generally made a nuisance of ourselves that served to highlight climate and community wrecking investments in tar sands, open cast coal and biofuels. We’ve cost RBS and the companies it funds a certain amount of money and reputation, and we’ve got people talking.

Climate Camp 2010-welcome
Climate Camp 2010-setting up site
Setting up site.

So, back to the beginning. I was part of the initial Land Grab on Wednesday evening…. which meant taking two days to get up to Scotland and not at any point giving away our whereabouts. On arrival at our destination we scrambled through fields in search of the huge seven tonne truck that transports our big marquee poles, already parked in the middle of the manicured lands that belong to the RBS HQ. From there I walked into the adjoining field and marvelled at our audacity, for we’ve never been this close to our target before. There it was, the HQ lit up like a giant christmas tree well into the night, rumoured to be so large that it supports its very own supermarket. It seemed almost impossible that with only a hundred people we might take this second field too, but take it we did because soon people were trundling around with wheelbarrows full of tat (an all encompassing word to describe all the stuff we need to run a camp). From the top of the man made mound we could see right into the glass walled HQ, where bored workers were no doubt entertained by us for a few days before RBS decreed they should work from home.

YouTube Preview Image

By the time I got up the next morning the site was already humming with activity and new campers who had joined us over the course of the night when they heard about our location via text and twitter. This year’s site, as well as being the cheekiest we have ever taken was also the most beautiful, and abundant with wildlife: mice, frogs and lots and lots of slugs. It’s long layout did however put paid to the permaculture plans we have adhered to in previous years, and necessitated a long walk from one end to the other.

Climate Camp 2010-set up

My role at Climate Camp has settled into a bit of a routine – taking photos, video and twittering. It leaves precious little time for physical work around site and I’m usually to be found in the media tent or rushing around on an action. We had incredibly bad reception on this site, and I soon became friendly with the Comms tent which was sited on the top of the hill and had a better 3G signal. For those of you who don’t know what I’m wittering on about, Comms refers to our defence and communications system which works by collating information from people on all the gates around site. It’s a 24 hour a day job and this year it was skill shared in a most impressive way for the first time.

Climate Camp 2010-media team
Some of the media team.

I think we’d all been fearful that this camp would be much less well attended than previous ones, but by Friday I estimate that there were almost 1000 people on site, and it felt as though they were all there for a purpose. At Blackheath last year we really focused on outreach and both that and our location ensured rather a lot of sightseeing which unfortunately meant that direct action took a major back seat to workshops. This time the workshops timetable was slimmer, and from early on there was a notable amount of small affinity groups planning direct action in the tall grass. This I think is a good development. And take direct action we did – every day. Here are some of the best actions I took part in:

Climate Camp 2010-refugee camp

1. Taking the land, obviously.
The biggest direct action of them all – it’s hard not to be nervous with an action like this on which the rest of Climate Camp depends. We stopped in at some charity shops for entertaining cut price CDs on our way northwards, and as we drove towards our swooping point we played the Star Wars theme tune at top volume. Despite our huge truck and noisy scrambling it took the police at least half an hour to arrive, by which time we were able to hold the space and had started erecting tents by torchlight. It did, however, mean that the advertised swoop the next day was a bit of a damp squib, and some of the participants must have felt a bit left out of all the excitement.

Climate Camp 2010-site take
Erecting the first marquees on site by torchlight.

2. Raising a Ruckus
On Friday we held a merry little dance parade around the RBS offices, culminating in an incursion into a conveniently open entrance where we jumped up and down in the doorway whilst security looked bemused and staff gazed down from the floors above. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, a lone activist had infiltrated the offices as a banker and stuck herself to a reception desk, where she berated RBS for agreeing to fund Vedanta’s mining activities on the sacred lands of the Dongria Kondh tribe in India. We later learnt that she had changed her name to Dongria Kondh by deed poll the week before, declaring that she would only change it back if RBS retracted funding. Fortunately it was announced this week that India has blocked the mining operation. Though I quite like Dongria Kondh as a name….

Climate Camp rouser
Climate Camp rouser door
YouTube Preview Image

3. A Lady Gaga tribute: the Dirty Oil dance action
Conscious of Climate Camp’s decision to descend on Scotland without much forethought about how we could support local struggles I volunteered to attend the solidarity demo against a new coal mine at Cousland, but then I was reminded that I had also promised to document my Green Kite Midnight friends’ musical action. Lady Gaga won out in the end. Standing inside a small candy striped marquee we learnt new lyrics to Poker Face, featuring the immortal lines:

It’s getting hot, the planet’s nearly shot
We’ll make them stop, we’re putting up a block

Tar sands is dirty oil
Can’t use my, can’t use my taxes no
To invest in dirty oil

Climate Camp 2010-gaga rehearsal
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil
Rehearsing dance moves and getting ready to leave.

By midday we were ready to take our act to the streets of Edinburgh. With black bin bag bows in hair and fluorescent waistcoats we marched with resolve towards the biggest branch of RBS on St Andrews Square…. to find it already closed. Closed by the threat of song and dance. Score! We then set off on a tour through the town centre, jumping an RBS fringe stage for a special ten minute non-sponsored rendition. You can watch this here. We taught some onlookers the dance moves, bumped into the Greenwash Guerillas en route and handed out loads of leaflets.

Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-on steps
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-fringe stage
Crowds watch us at the Fringe
Climate Camp 2010-fringe audience
and the Greenwash Guerillas…
Climate Camp 2010-Greenwash Guerillas

4. Sunday site incursion
I knew there were plans afoot but I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mass of people dancing towards me in white paper boiler suits. And then they carried on dancing their way over the bridge to RBS, pushing the police back with ease and racing around the corner towards an unguarded part of the RBS HQ. When I got there it became apparent that they had completely taken the police by surprise and several windows had been smashed as the morass propelled forward. For a short moment chaos reigned as the police tried and failed to contain the seething crowd (who needs Black Bloc when you’ve got White Bloc, as one twitterer noted) and they were successfully able to de-arrest several people.

RBS site incursion march
RBS site incursion
RBS site invasion tussle
RBS Sunday invasion

Unfortunately this short point of panic enabled the police to gain the upper hand, and if the intention had been to get in and hold the building we had lost the head start. After two arrests there was a brief stand off with police at the bridge and the action petered out, the white garbed frontline on the bridge replaced by a large white fluffy bunny. I kid thee not.

Climate Camp 2010-white bunny

At our evening plenary a dampener was put on the situation almost immediately. Unfortunately the action had been badly timed to coincide with a speech from our visiting tar sands activists, who had felt seriously disrespected by the disruption to their workshop. They were also uncomfortable with the apparent violence of smashing windows, as were a few others. Through skilful facilitation we were able to talk through these issues, with many good points being made that Climate Camp comprises a diverse range of people who use different tactics, and whilst we would never ever condone physical violence against people, corporate property is another matter altogether. All successful direct action campaigns have attacked physical infrastructure, from the Suffragettes to the 1990s road protest movement. Causing infrastructure damage hits a company where it hurts: their pockets.

Climate Camp 2010-meeting
An early site-wide meeting.

We’ve always been very careful with our language, although the media often insists on referring to us as “peaceful” or NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action). In another twist seasoned activists have levelled many criticisms at us over the past few years with regards to us being too media friendly. For many this action proved that we really are capable of doing more than the media stunts and banner drops of recent times. It was also acknowledged that whilst we could sympathise with the feelings of First Nations activists it could not dictate the way that Climate Camp works, and indeed whilst we should work hard at international bonds we should not deify indigenous peoples above our local communities. We finished the meeting with a euphoric group hug that seemed to express: Yes! We are powerful together! We can break through police lines and inflict serious physical damage to a building! With a bit more intent we could have got into the HQ and dug in for the duration: of that I have no doubt.

Climate Camp 2010-serving dinner
Serving dinner at the South Coast neighbourhood.

5. The RBS Trojan Pig leaking molasses outside Cairn Energy offices
At just past 9am I dropped my half drunk tea and ran full tilt out of the cafe where I had been sitting on Lothian Road. Ahead of me a group of people in black ceremoniously carried a large pink pig – eyes painted with the RBS logo – up the impressive granite steps of the offices for Cairn Energy, who received £117 million in loans from RBS last year, some of which helped them to start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland. Two activists sprayed molasses against the side of the building in decorative swirls as more molasses seeped out of the pig and down the steps. A security guard briefly looked on, but never moved the large pink carcass which was reported later that day as forlornly pushed aside on the steps. Ironically it is only because of climate change and melting ice that Cairn Energy are able to drill in the polar regions as new oil reserves are revealed. By coincidence a Greenpeace ship reached the drill rig on our day of action, where it was met by a Danish warship. It is hoped that lots of activists will join Crude Awakening, a day of mass action against oil supported by Climate Camp on Saturday October 16th in London.

Cairn Trojan Pig parade
Cairn Trojan Pig molasses
YouTube Preview Image

6. Shutting down Nicolson Street branch of RBS
The weather was not kind to us on our main day of action, and getting lost en route to my next destination didn’t help. By just after 10am I was soaked through to the skin. Across the entrance to Nicolson Street RBS three of my friends glued themselves together with green posters pinned to their fronts that said “Ask me why I won’t bank with RBS“. As customers arrived they engaged them in conversation and then let them duck under their arms. With musicians and a small gaggle of Lady Gaga impersonators I went inside to be greeted by an old man grumbling bad-temperedly at the counter. He then proceeded to watch several reprises of the Dirty Oil song and dance routine, by now familiar to all. Next up was a reinvigorated version of the Gloria Gaynor classic I Will Survive, and as we moved outside the police finally arrived. I went to upload some tweets and when I returned journalists and photographers were out in force and the branch had been closed. Later that day another bunch of activists dressed in bin bags and dripping in molasses closed down the same branch.

Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS
Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS 2

7. We’ve built a Rhino Siege Tower!
Yes really. At the top of the hill above RBS what looked like a watch tower had risen during the course of the camp, gaining painted corrugated metal sides and a roof. And perhaps best of all a huge paper mache Rhino head attached to it’s derriere. I got back from the mornings actions to find a huge gaggle of people surrounding the tower, all dressed in wonderful outfits, inspired by medieval battle, clowns, animals and pagan dress. And then we waited…. and waited… and joked about slow action being the new slow food movement. Finally, we were ready to roll. The siege tower was on wheels. And with people guiding it via a series of ropes and pulleys it began to inch it’s way around the wind break and down the hill as we all held our breath and prayed that it didn’t topple into the bank of photographers waiting below. This process took about four hours, by which time I’d long since stopped worrying that I would miss anything crucial every time I went to recharge my damn iphone again. Over at the bridge a series of mollassapaults were fired onto the HQ by black clad activists. And then as we finally crawled towards the gate the rain really set in. Dancing animals met lines of riot police and squirted silly string over their heads as the Siege Tower finally cleared a low hanging branch and the rhino headbutted a police van.

Climate Camp Rhino Seige Tower
Climate Camp 2010-scary clown
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-hits van

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line of riot cops so bemused. What the hell were we doing? On the side of the tower There Is No Planet B had been painted over at some point during the long journey to say There Is No Plan. My camera decided to complain about the incessant rain. It packed up. I decided to call it a day, and soon so did many soggy others. The Guardian’s live blog had long since stopped reporting on our actions of the day since most of them were done in the morning – including a very brilliant banner drop off the roof of Forth Energy in Leith in protest of a new and huge biomass scheme that would require the mass importation of vast quantities of wood chip.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-frontline
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-sillystring
mollassapault tim morozzo
The mollassapault. Photography by Tim Morozzo.

And so, we didn’t give the mainstream media the huge action they might have liked. Instead we gave them lots of small and effective affinity group actions across Edinburgh and beyond, as planned. Topped off with the most surreal action of them all – a Rhino Siege Tower that effectively closed down the RBS HQ merely through creative farce and the power of suggestion. Sometimes my heart is so full of love for the thing that is Climate Camp that it feels fit to burst.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino

Other highlights of this years’ camp included a storming ceilidh (apologies to the Scottish for making this word our own) with my band Green Kite Midnight, spoken word from Harry Giles, visits from Fringe comedians Albie Philbin Bowman and Josie Long, and dancing long into the night after our day of action. Despite all the trials and tribulations of being so involved with Climate Camp I can’t wait to see what we come up with next. Even if we didn’t Break the Banks you’ve got to admit it was a damn good slogan, and we’ve successfully managed to highlight the investment of our money in fossil fuels to a far wider public. Now we just need to change the system that encourages wanton consumption of fossil fuels to the wide scale detriment of the only planet we have to live on. Who’s up for helping out?

You can watch lots more of the videos that I took on my Qik channel here.

Climate Camp 2010-Albie Philbin Bowman
Albie Philbin Bowman performs for us.

Many other inspiring actions happened across the course of the camp, but these did not include the supposed oil spill on the A8 on Monday morning, as press released by the police. Our targets have always been corporations and the government not innocent people, but isn’t it somehow predictable that the press picked up on the “oil spill” so relentlessly – happy to reel it off as fact without adequate research or proof. More on how the press have related to this year’s Climate Camp in my next blog post.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos
A beautiful painted compost loo.
Climate Camp 2010-anarchist baby
Climate Camp 2010-RBS bridge
Climate Camp 2010-bunny

Climate Camp 2010-media
Our best 3G signal for getting onto the internet was found at the top of the rise. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Since I’ve returned from Climate Camp in Edinburgh the media backlash against us has began. Perhaps we have grown complacent about our cosy relationship with the mainstream media over the past few years? Thwarted in their desire for juicy riot porn the Guardian instead turned to the trouble I had been experiencing on twitter since the start of camp, buy information pills when one troll turned into two, which then turned into a whole host of the little critters. Because trolls always have friends and they know how to find each other. And once they do they like to have a feeding frenzy.

Climate Camp 2010-mediateam
The media team: small but very hard working.

So how did this all start? Well, unfortunately I feel very much to blame and I’ve learnt my lesson. At the start of this year I went on an anti EDL march in London, and whilst there I picked up a follower of the EDL sympathising persuasion. Now, I’ve never followed him, but we did engage in conversation every now and again on twitter. He’s a very persistent sort of chap, and I thought “ow, bless, he’s sadly misguided but essentially a sweet man despite his extreme right wing nationalistic views – maybe he’ll learn something if he follows me.” He even offered to help out with my website. Well, that was my biggest mistake: EDL sympathisers are not for the turning. So, he knew about the #climatecamp hashtag from me, and he made it his personal business to stalk me on it throughout Climate Camp – describing me as his #twittercrush and Climate Camp Vamp on @replies to my personal twitter feed, loitering on the perimeter of the campsite and offering me lifts home from Edinburgh in his “gun metal Aston” when I tweeted about waiting for the bus… and posting offensive tweets to all and sundry through the #climatecamp hashtag which only served to attract even more horrible little trolls from far and wide. Anthropogenic global warming denialists, fascists, homophobes, racists, sexists – you name it, they all came running.

Climate Camp 2010-all ages
People of all ages come to Climate Camp.

I managed to ignore these trolls – because what else can you do? Like a greedy little pug, if you feed them they just keep coming back for more. It looked like things might die down as the camp started to wind up. And then. James Randerson on the Guardian environment blog saw fit to publish an article featuring some tweets from these trolls – “Twitter Backfires” screeched the headline. As if a few trolls would stop interested people and Climate Camp supporters from going straight to the Climate Camp twitter feed (wow, what a novel idea!) or reading through to the interesting and relevant tweets in the #climatecamp stream rather than fatuous fake retweets reinforcing every known stereotype of “hippy activist”. We are all posh, anarchist, crybaby, smelly, student, lentil chomping, yurt dwelling, marxists. Wow! I’d really love to meet someone who embodies all of those things in one person!

Climate Camp 2010-child
Climate Camp 2010-girl
Just some of the very happy well-adjusted children on Climate Camp.

The outcome of the Guardian blog? It fed the trolls a huge amount of publicity and unwittingly condoned their actions… and by default their opinions. This on the environment blog of a left leaning newspaper – which supposedly supports our actions. And here it was saying our protest was a failure purely because we didn’t “own” the twittersphere. Sour grapes because we didn’t provide them with the exciting coverage the mainstream media demands of us? Seems like it to me. And utter bullshit. Because at the end of the day most people on Climate Camp don’t use twitter – and have no idea of this storm on a Tweetdeck. They couldn’t care less – they were on camp, taking direct action together, on the site of the HQ, in an RBS branch in Edinburgh, handing out leaflets about tarsands, marching with locals on the proposed site of a huge new open cast coal mine or teaching subversive lyrics at an impromptu performance on a Fringe stage. There are so many other ways to reach people, and twitter is but one tool in the outreach box.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos change
Changing the straw bales in the loos.

Suddenly the trolls were back in business. And so I’ve spent the past few days doing my best blocking irrelevant trolls and aborting the #climatecamp hashtag amongst supportive followers. It’s been a swift learning curve. But one big thing I’ve realised is this: you can’t change some people. I should have blocked my troll the minute he started following me. I still think he’s a sad misguided individual – one with an awful lot of lonely time on his hands to spend a whole week trolling on the #climatecamp hashtag – but he’s also a massive arse to take such pleasure out of petty nastiness. The fact that he claims to care about the environment “I plant trees” – big woop-de-doo – makes his actions particularly noxious. What’s more he’s a passive aggressive EDL sympathiser with far right leanings who rather scarily knows an awful lot about me and The Guardian has given him and his ilk a legitimacy that is far from worthy. But to equate a problem on twitter with a wholesale failure of the camp is just ridiculous; whilst this whole episode may personally have made my life quite unpleasant, none of this will affect those who are committed to taking direct action as part of Climate Camp. So in the end a big old #fail for the trolls. I’d like to believe they are even now scuttling back into their little troll homes… but I doubt they will be able to stop their fingers from itching towards the keyboard.

Climate Camp 2010-set up boards
Now, where do these go?
Climate Camp 2010-wheelchair
Climate Camp is accessible to all.

Trolls: a few words. This blog is moderated and you aren’t welcome on here. I wholly reserve the right to delete you. You’ve been warned.

You can read about all the actions we took on Climate Camp at the RBS HQ in Edinburgh on my blog here.

Categories ,AGW, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Camp Vamp, ,Direct Action, ,edinburgh, ,EDL, ,Hashtags, ,Media, ,RBS, ,Trolls, ,twitter, ,Twittercrush

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Amelia’s Magazine | Earth Listings: 23rd – 29th November 2009

Monday 23rd November, viagra 60mg Lisa Hannigan, Royal Festival Hall

Lisa

Debut album “Sea Sew” came out this summer from Miss Hannigan and she is now touring to support this. The Mercury Prize nominated album includes singles “Lille” and “I Don’t Know”. She continues the tour in Manchester and Birmingham before a string of Irish dates leading up to Christmas.

Tuesday 24th November, Pyramiddd, Flowerpot

Pyramiddd

Previously known as something that isn’t suitable for publishing at this time of day, these punk/rock/pop/disco kids tick all the boxes. They are touring in the UK for the first time to support debut single “Medicine” which is out November 30th. As well as appearing at the Flowerpot tonight they will also play ICA with those Filthy Dukes on the 25th and Notting Hill Arts Club on the 26th of November.

Wednesday November 25th, The Puppini Sisters, Pigalle

Puppini

Catch jazzy pop trio The Puppini Sisters at the peak of a 5 night stint at the Pigalle club. Album “The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo” is out now on which Beyonce, The Bangles and Take That get the unique Puppini swing-stylee treatment.

Thursday November 26th, Musee Mecanique, The Luminaire

Musee Mecanique

This Portland based posse come to London to treat us with their mellow indie folk tracks that feature on the beautiful album, “Hold Your Ghost”. These guys who have been compared to Neutral Milk Hotel and Beirut are tonight performing with Laura Gibson.

Friday November 27th, Silver Odyssey Experience, Secret Location

Silver

Fancy some Friday night stimulation? The Silver Odyssey experience covers all bases with Sounds, Sights, Smells, Touch, and Tastes to please. The techno teatime sounds come courtesy of Radio Slave and The Time and Space Machine. The secret location shall be revealed 2 days before the event.

Saturday November 28th, Cinammon Chasers, Master&Servant and Glover, Proud

Cinnamon Chasers

Listing films such as “The Never Ending Story” as one of his influences, Cinnamon Chasers says . “I try to create music that gives me the vibe those classic films gave me as a kid”. Do you need another reason to go and experience this?
Electro act Cinnamon Chasers shall perform along side Master&Servant and Glover.

Sunday 29th November, Sophie Solomon, Purcell Room

Sophie Solomon

Learning to play the Violin by ear from the age of two Sophie Solomon combines this with her vocal skills and merges a melody of styles into her music. The album “Poison Sweet Madeira” is her most recent offering.
Monday 23rd November, salve Lisa Hannigan, Royal Festival Hall

Lisa

Debut album “Sea Sew” came out this summer from Miss Hannigan and she is now touring to support this. The Mercury Prize nominated album includes singles “Lille” and “I Don’t Know”. She continues the tour in Manchester and Birmingham before a string of Irish dates leading up to Christmas.

Tuesday 24th November, Pyramiddd, Flowerpot

Pyramiddd

Previously known as something that isn’t suitable for publishing at this time of day, these punk/rock/pop/disco kids tick all the boxes. They are touring in the UK for the first time to support debut single “Medicine” which is out November 30th. As well as appearing at the Flowerpot tonight they will also play ICA with those Filthy Dukes on the 25th and Notting Hill Arts Club on the 26th of November.

Wednesday November 25th, The Puppini Sisters, Pigalle

Puppini

Catch jazzy pop trio The Puppini Sisters at the peak of a 5 night stint at the Pigalle club. Album “The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo” is out now on which Beyonce, The Bangles and Take That get the unique Puppini swing-stylee treatment.

Thursday November 26th, Musee Mecanique, The Luminaire

Musee Mecanique

This Portland based posse come to London to treat us with their mellow indie folk tracks that feature on the beautiful album, “Hold Your Ghost”. These guys who have been compared to Neutral Milk Hotel and Beirut are tonight performing with Laura Gibson.

Friday November 27th, Silver Odyssey Experience, Secret Location

Silver

Fancy some Friday night stimulation? The Silver Odyssey experience covers all bases with Sounds, Sights, Smells, Touch, and Tastes to please. The techno teatime sounds come courtesy of Radio Slave and The Time and Space Machine. The secret location shall be revealed 2 days before the event.

Saturday November 28th, Cinammon Chasers, Master&Servant and Glover, Proud

Cinnamon Chasers

Listing films such as “The Never Ending Story” as one of his influences, Cinnamon Chasers says . “I try to create music that gives me the vibe those classic films gave me as a kid”. Do you need another reason to go and experience this?
Electro act Cinnamon Chasers shall perform along side Master&Servant and Glover.

Sunday 29th November, Sophie Solomon, Purcell Rooms
Sophie Solomon

Learning to play the Violin by ear from the age of two Sophie Solomon combines this with her vocal skills and merges a melody of styles into her music. The album “Poison Sweet Madeira” is her most recent offering.
Monday 23rd November, medications Lisa Hannigan, Royal Festival Hall

Lisa

Debut album “Sea Sew” came out this summer from Miss Hannigan and she is now touring to support this. The Mercury Prize nominated album includes singles “Lille” and “I Don’t Know”. She continues the tour in Manchester and Birmingham before a string of Irish dates leading up to Christmas.

Tuesday 24th November, Pyramiddd, Flowerpot

Pyramiddd

Previously known as something that isn’t suitable for publishing at this time of day, these punk/rock/pop/disco kids tick all the boxes. They are touring in the UK for the first time to support debut single “Medicine” which is out November 30th. As well as appearing at the Flowerpot tonight they will also play ICA with those Filthy Dukes on the 25th and Notting Hill Arts Club on the 26th of November.

Wednesday November 25th, The Puppini Sisters, Pigalle

Puppini

Catch jazzy pop trio The Puppini Sisters at the peak of a 5 night stint at the Pigalle club. Album “The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo” is out now on which Beyonce, The Bangles and Take That get the unique Puppini swing-stylee treatment.

Thursday November 26th, Musee Mecanique, The Luminaire

Musee Mecanique

This Portland based posse come to London to treat us with their mellow indie folk tracks that feature on the beautiful album, “Hold Your Ghost”. These guys who have been compared to Neutral Milk Hotel and Beirut are tonight performing with Laura Gibson.

Friday November 27th, Silver Odyssey Experience, Secret Location

Silver

Fancy some Friday night stimulation? The Silver Odyssey experience covers all bases with Sounds, Sights, Smells, Touch, and Tastes to please. The techno teatime sounds come courtesy of Radio Slave and The Time and Space Machine. The secret location shall be revealed 2 days before the event.

Saturday November 28th, Cinammon Chasers, Master&Servant and Glover, Proud

Cinnamon Chasers

Listing films such as “The Never Ending Story” as one of his influences, Cinnamon Chasers says . “I try to create music that gives me the vibe those classic films gave me as a kid”. Do you need another reason to go and experience this?
Electro act Cinnamon Chasers shall perform along side Master&Servant and Glover.

Sunday 29th November, Sophie Solomon, Purcell Rooms
Sophie Solomon

Learning to play the Violin by ear from the age of two Sophie Solomon combines this with her vocal skills and merges a melody of styles into her music. The album “Poison Sweet Madeira” is her most recent offering.
Climate Rush Film Screening: DEEDS NOT WORDS
Tuesday 24th November 2009 

climaterush

Image courtesy of Amelia Gregory

It’s been just over a year since Climate Rush decended on Parliament dressed as Suffragettes, this web demanding an immediate halt to airport expansion, buy information pills no new coal power stations and an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Amazingly, camera footage documenting that historic day has been developed into a stirring new film that features significant moments such as an inspiring speech by Caroline Lucas MEP. (and also featuring Amelia’s Magazine’s Amelia Gregory!) Go along and relive the thrill of the first Rush at the VERY FIRST screening of this momentous new movie!

Image courtesy of Climate Rush

Image courtesy of Amelia Gregory

Where? The Flea Pit, 49 Columbia Road, London
When? 6 – 10pm, Tuesday 24th November 2009
FREE ENTRY
www.climaterush.co.uk

www.tubbybrother.co.uk

Fun Between Your Legs: Help design the Resistance Machine!
24th – 29th November 2009

Climate Camp and Art Activist group The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination merge to create Operation Bike Bloc, which will launch it’s Resistance Machine during the COP15 UN summit in Copenhagen next month. The machine, in case you’re wondering, will be fashioned from hundreds of old bicycles and activists bodies. Artists, engineers, welders, bike hackers and more will team up to create this new tool of cival disobedience and you can get involved too. If you’d like to help design and build the prototype get yourself down to the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol this week, or even help build the final design at the Candyfactory in Copenhagen between the 6th – 16th of December. More coming on Operation Bike Bloc later this week!

Image courtesy of Katie Rose Gill

 Image courtesy of Katie Rose Gill – Girl & The Deer

Where? Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
When? 24th – 29th November
www.arnolfini.org.uk

Live to Create November
Saturday 28th November

Switch from Consumer to Creator in this special one day workshop held by Live to Create founder Lucy Wills and Carbon Outreach‘s Erica Grigg. Us humans are unique in our over consumption and this workshop aims to confront these barriers that are perhaps preventing our creativity and reconnect with our creative identities. Using ideas, tools and dynamic activities that have been drawn from corporate best practice, grassroots activism, personal development, magic and Laban dance theory the purpose of this event is not to tell you what you can and cannot buy, but to help you discover what you could be doing and to nudge you out into your new creative universe.

There are only 16 places for this one day workshop held at the lovely Time for Tea in Shoreditch, so book as soon possible. Pop along for the workshop and stay for the tea, cake and conversation!

Where? Time for Tea, 110 Shoreditch High Street, London
When? 10.30am – 4.00pm, Saturday 28th November
Cost? £50 each, £30 concessions
Order tickets www.livetocreatenovember-efbevent.eventbite.com

Categories ,Anti-Consumerism, ,bicycles, ,Carbon Reduction, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Rush, ,Copenhagen summit

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Amelia’s Magazine | Climate Camp 2010: Twitter Backfires… or does it?

Climate Camp 2010-serving dinner
Climate Camp 2010-nature doesnt
All photography by Amelia Gregory unless otherwise stated.

Over the past few years I have become increasingly embedded in the process of Climate Camp, web so I am well aware that the run up to this year’s Climate Camp has been more fraught with difficulties than ever – but as a spectacularly open grassroots non-heirarchical direct action organisation we would be the first to acknowledge this fact. We argued long and hard about whether RBS was an appropriate target for this year’s activities, case and we picked our spot without really checking in with Scottish activists who were not present at the meeting, website like this thereby alienating some of our allies… so it’s a testament to the movement we’ve created that I left the Edinburgh camp feeling that Climate Camp, whatever nebulous thing that might be, is stronger than ever. We may not have grown in numbers but there has been a definite increase in the quality of active participation and we are slowly becoming more diverse too – there was a notable improvement in our age, class and racial make up this year, though we still have a long way to go.

Climate Camp 2010-camp life
Climate Camp 2010-scene

And we were successful – we didn’t for one moment imagine that we would make the same kind of splash in the national media as we have in other more southern based years (journalists are notoriously bad at travelling for any kind of story: witness the lack of press surrounding our extremely successful Ratcliffe on Soar action in October 2009) but we certainly made big news in the Scottish press, we did loads of outreach and best of all WE GOT IN THE WAY. We shut shit down and generally made a nuisance of ourselves that served to highlight climate and community wrecking investments in tar sands, open cast coal and biofuels. We’ve cost RBS and the companies it funds a certain amount of money and reputation, and we’ve got people talking.

Climate Camp 2010-welcome
Climate Camp 2010-setting up site
Setting up site.

So, back to the beginning. I was part of the initial Land Grab on Wednesday evening…. which meant taking two days to get up to Scotland and not at any point giving away our whereabouts. On arrival at our destination we scrambled through fields in search of the huge seven tonne truck that transports our big marquee poles, already parked in the middle of the manicured lands that belong to the RBS HQ. From there I walked into the adjoining field and marvelled at our audacity, for we’ve never been this close to our target before. There it was, the HQ lit up like a giant christmas tree well into the night, rumoured to be so large that it supports its very own supermarket. It seemed almost impossible that with only a hundred people we might take this second field too, but take it we did because soon people were trundling around with wheelbarrows full of tat (an all encompassing word to describe all the stuff we need to run a camp). From the top of the man made mound we could see right into the glass walled HQ, where bored workers were no doubt entertained by us for a few days before RBS decreed they should work from home.

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By the time I got up the next morning the site was already humming with activity and new campers who had joined us over the course of the night when they heard about our location via text and twitter. This year’s site, as well as being the cheekiest we have ever taken was also the most beautiful, and abundant with wildlife: mice, frogs and lots and lots of slugs. It’s long layout did however put paid to the permaculture plans we have adhered to in previous years, and necessitated a long walk from one end to the other.

Climate Camp 2010-set up

My role at Climate Camp has settled into a bit of a routine – taking photos, video and twittering. It leaves precious little time for physical work around site and I’m usually to be found in the media tent or rushing around on an action. We had incredibly bad reception on this site, and I soon became friendly with the Comms tent which was sited on the top of the hill and had a better 3G signal. For those of you who don’t know what I’m wittering on about, Comms refers to our defence and communications system which works by collating information from people on all the gates around site. It’s a 24 hour a day job and this year it was skill shared in a most impressive way for the first time.

Climate Camp 2010-media team
Some of the media team.

I think we’d all been fearful that this camp would be much less well attended than previous ones, but by Friday I estimate that there were almost 1000 people on site, and it felt as though they were all there for a purpose. At Blackheath last year we really focused on outreach and both that and our location ensured rather a lot of sightseeing which unfortunately meant that direct action took a major back seat to workshops. This time the workshops timetable was slimmer, and from early on there was a notable amount of small affinity groups planning direct action in the tall grass. This I think is a good development. And take direct action we did – every day. Here are some of the best actions I took part in:

Climate Camp 2010-refugee camp

1. Taking the land, obviously.
The biggest direct action of them all – it’s hard not to be nervous with an action like this on which the rest of Climate Camp depends. We stopped in at some charity shops for entertaining cut price CDs on our way northwards, and as we drove towards our swooping point we played the Star Wars theme tune at top volume. Despite our huge truck and noisy scrambling it took the police at least half an hour to arrive, by which time we were able to hold the space and had started erecting tents by torchlight. It did, however, mean that the advertised swoop the next day was a bit of a damp squib, and some of the participants must have felt a bit left out of all the excitement.

Climate Camp 2010-site take
Erecting the first marquees on site by torchlight.

2. Raising a Ruckus
On Friday we held a merry little dance parade around the RBS offices, culminating in an incursion into a conveniently open entrance where we jumped up and down in the doorway whilst security looked bemused and staff gazed down from the floors above. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, a lone activist had infiltrated the offices as a banker and stuck herself to a reception desk, where she berated RBS for agreeing to fund Vedanta’s mining activities on the sacred lands of the Dongria Kondh tribe in India. We later learnt that she had changed her name to Dongria Kondh by deed poll the week before, declaring that she would only change it back if RBS retracted funding. Fortunately it was announced this week that India has blocked the mining operation. Though I quite like Dongria Kondh as a name….

Climate Camp rouser
Climate Camp rouser door
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3. A Lady Gaga tribute: the Dirty Oil dance action
Conscious of Climate Camp’s decision to descend on Scotland without much forethought about how we could support local struggles I volunteered to attend the solidarity demo against a new coal mine at Cousland, but then I was reminded that I had also promised to document my Green Kite Midnight friends’ musical action. Lady Gaga won out in the end. Standing inside a small candy striped marquee we learnt new lyrics to Poker Face, featuring the immortal lines:

It’s getting hot, the planet’s nearly shot
We’ll make them stop, we’re putting up a block

Tar sands is dirty oil
Can’t use my, can’t use my taxes no
To invest in dirty oil

Climate Camp 2010-gaga rehearsal
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil
Rehearsing dance moves and getting ready to leave.

By midday we were ready to take our act to the streets of Edinburgh. With black bin bag bows in hair and fluorescent waistcoats we marched with resolve towards the biggest branch of RBS on St Andrews Square…. to find it already closed. Closed by the threat of song and dance. Score! We then set off on a tour through the town centre, jumping an RBS fringe stage for a special ten minute non-sponsored rendition. You can watch this here. We taught some onlookers the dance moves, bumped into the Greenwash Guerillas en route and handed out loads of leaflets.

Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-on steps
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-fringe stage
Crowds watch us at the Fringe
Climate Camp 2010-fringe audience
and the Greenwash Guerillas…
Climate Camp 2010-Greenwash Guerillas

4. Sunday site incursion
I knew there were plans afoot but I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mass of people dancing towards me in white paper boiler suits. And then they carried on dancing their way over the bridge to RBS, pushing the police back with ease and racing around the corner towards an unguarded part of the RBS HQ. When I got there it became apparent that they had completely taken the police by surprise and several windows had been smashed as the morass propelled forward. For a short moment chaos reigned as the police tried and failed to contain the seething crowd (who needs Black Bloc when you’ve got White Bloc, as one twitterer noted) and they were successfully able to de-arrest several people.

RBS site incursion march
RBS site incursion
RBS site invasion tussle
RBS Sunday invasion

Unfortunately this short point of panic enabled the police to gain the upper hand, and if the intention had been to get in and hold the building we had lost the head start. After two arrests there was a brief stand off with police at the bridge and the action petered out, the white garbed frontline on the bridge replaced by a large white fluffy bunny. I kid thee not.

Climate Camp 2010-white bunny

At our evening plenary a dampener was put on the situation almost immediately. Unfortunately the action had been badly timed to coincide with a speech from our visiting tar sands activists, who had felt seriously disrespected by the disruption to their workshop. They were also uncomfortable with the apparent violence of smashing windows, as were a few others. Through skilful facilitation we were able to talk through these issues, with many good points being made that Climate Camp comprises a diverse range of people who use different tactics, and whilst we would never ever condone physical violence against people, corporate property is another matter altogether. All successful direct action campaigns have attacked physical infrastructure, from the Suffragettes to the 1990s road protest movement. Causing infrastructure damage hits a company where it hurts: their pockets.

Climate Camp 2010-meeting
An early site-wide meeting.

We’ve always been very careful with our language, although the media often insists on referring to us as “peaceful” or NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action). In another twist seasoned activists have levelled many criticisms at us over the past few years with regards to us being too media friendly. For many this action proved that we really are capable of doing more than the media stunts and banner drops of recent times. It was also acknowledged that whilst we could sympathise with the feelings of First Nations activists it could not dictate the way that Climate Camp works, and indeed whilst we should work hard at international bonds we should not deify indigenous peoples above our local communities. We finished the meeting with a euphoric group hug that seemed to express: Yes! We are powerful together! We can break through police lines and inflict serious physical damage to a building! With a bit more intent we could have got into the HQ and dug in for the duration: of that I have no doubt.

5. The RBS Trojan Pig leaking molasses outside Cairn Energy offices
At just past 9am I dropped my half drunk tea and ran full tilt out of the cafe where I had been sitting on Lothian Road. Ahead of me a group of people in black ceremoniously carried a large pink pig – eyes painted with the RBS logo – up the impressive granite steps of the offices for Cairn Energy, who received £117 million in loans from RBS last year, some of which helped them to start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland. Two activists sprayed molasses against the side of the building in decorative swirls as more molasses seeped out of the pig and down the steps. A security guard briefly looked on, but never moved the large pink carcass which was reported later that day as forlornly pushed aside on the steps. Ironically it is only because of climate change and melting ice that Cairn Energy are able to drill in the polar regions as new oil reserves are revealed. By coincidence a Greenpeace ship reached the drill rig on our day of action, where it was met by a Danish warship. It is hoped that lots of activists will join Crude Awakening, a day of mass action against oil supported by Climate Camp on Saturday October 16th in London.

Cairn Trojan Pig parade
Cairn Trojan Pig molasses
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6. Shutting down Nicolson Street branch of RBS
The weather was not kind to us on our main day of action, and getting lost en route to my next destination didn’t help. By just after 10am I was soaked through to the skin. Across the entrance to Nicolson Street RBS three of my friends glued themselves together with green posters pinned to their fronts that said “Ask me why I won’t bank with RBS“. As customers arrived they engaged them in conversation and then let them duck under their arms. With musicians and a small gaggle of Lady Gaga impersonators I went inside to be greeted by an old man grumbling bad-temperedly at the counter. He then proceeded to watch several reprises of the Dirty Oil song and dance routine, by now familiar to all. Next up was a reinvigorated version of the Gloria Gaynor classic I Will Survive, and as we moved outside the police finally arrived. I went to upload some tweets and when I returned journalists and photographers were out in force and the branch had been closed. Later that day another bunch of activists dressed in bin bags and dripping in molasses closed down the same branch.

Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS
Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS 2

7. We’ve built a Rhino Siege Tower!
Yes really. At the top of the hill above RBS what looked like a watch tower had risen during the course of the camp, gaining painted corrugated metal sides and a roof. And perhaps best of all a huge paper mache Rhino head attached to it’s derriere. I got back from the mornings actions to find a huge gaggle of people surrounding the tower, all dressed in wonderful outfits, inspired by medieval battle, clowns, animals and pagan dress. And then we waited…. and waited… and joked about slow action being the new slow food movement. Finally, we were ready to roll. The siege tower was on wheels. And with people guiding it via a series of ropes and pulleys it began to inch it’s way around the wind break and down the hill as we all held our breath and prayed that it didn’t topple into the bank of photographers waiting below. This process took about four hours, by which time I’d long since stopped worrying that I would miss anything crucial every time I went to recharge my damn iphone again. Over at the bridge a series of mollassapaults were fired onto the HQ by black clad activists. And then as we finally crawled towards the gate the rain really set in. Dancing animals met lines of riot police and squirted silly string over their heads as the Siege Tower finally cleared a low hanging branch and the rhino headbutted a police van.

Climate Camp Rhino Seige Tower
Climate Camp 2010-scary clown
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-hits van

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line of riot cops so bemused. What the hell were we doing? On the side of the tower There Is No Planet B had been painted over at some point during the long journey to say There Is No Plan. My camera decided to complain about the incessant rain. It packed up. I decided to call it a day, and soon so did many soggy others. The Guardian’s live blog had long since stopped reporting on our actions of the day since most of them were done in the morning – including a very brilliant banner drop off the roof of Forth Energy in Leith in protest of a new and huge biomass scheme that would require the mass importation of vast quantities of wood chip.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-frontline
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-sillystring
mollassapault tim morozzo
The mollassapault. Photography by Tim Morozzo.

And so, we didn’t give the mainstream media the huge action they might have liked. Instead we gave them lots of small and effective affinity group actions across Edinburgh and beyond, as planned. Topped off with the most surreal action of them all – a Rhino Siege Tower that effectively closed down the RBS HQ merely through creative farce and the power of suggestion. Sometimes my heart is so full of love for the thing that is Climate Camp that it feels fit to burst.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino

Other highlights of this years’ camp included a storming ceilidh (apologies to the Scottish for making this word our own) with my band Green Kite Midnight, spoken word from Harry Giles, visits from Fringe comedians Albie Philbin Bowman and Josie Long, and dancing long into the night after our day of action. Despite all the trials and tribulations of being so involved with Climate Camp I can’t wait to see what we come up with next. Even if we didn’t Break the Banks you’ve got to admit it was a damn good slogan, and we’ve successfully managed to highlight the investment of our money in fossil fuels to a far wider public. Now we just need to change the system that encourages wanton consumption of fossil fuels to the wide scale detriment of the only planet we have to live on. Who’s up for helping out?

You can watch lots more of the videos that I took on my Qik channel here.

Climate Camp 2010-Albie Philbin Bowman
Albie Philbin Bowman performs for us.

Many other inspiring actions happened across the course of the camp, but these did not include the supposed oil spill on the A8 on Monday morning, as press released by the police. Our targets have always been corporations and the government not innocent people, but isn’t it somehow predictable that the press picked up on the “oil spill” so relentlessly – happy to reel it off as fact without adequate research or proof. More on how the press have related to this year’s Climate Camp in my next blog post.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos
A beautiful painted compost loo.
Climate Camp 2010-anarchist baby
Climate Camp 2010-RBS bridge
Climate Camp 2010-bunny

Back in 2007, approved experimental hip hop pioneer Flying Lotus released the Reset EP, remedy which was met with critical acclaim largely due to the outstanding track Tea Leaf Dancers. The stunning fusion of glitchy hip hop and progressive soul remains the LA producer’s most popular song to date, thanks in no small part to a stunning vocal accompaniment that gave the track a melancholy, love-ridden feel. Those sultry, elegiac vocals were provided by London born singer-songwriter Andreya Triana and this year marks the release of her exceptional debut album Lost Where I Belong.
Triana began her musical journey at the age of fourteen when her family moved from south east London to the West Midlands, a move that that left her feeling cut off from society. “I grew up in Brixton,” begins the singer. “It was so culturally diverse, and then I moved to a predominantly white, middle class area so I felt quite isolated. I just started spending a lot of time in my room, writing poetry and making songs.”
After years of honing her song writing abilities, good fortune shone down on Triana when she was selected from thousands of applicants to attend the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy. “I became obsessed with getting in,” says Triana, with wide eyed excitement that suggests she is still in mild disbelief that she was chosen. “When I found out I got in I screamed the house down!”

It was here that Triana met up with Flying Lotus and the duo created what would become Tea Leaf Dancers, even though she had no idea who she was actually working with at the time. “I didn’t really know anything about his music,” admits Triana. “It’s crazy thinking about it all of these years later. There were about thirty of us collaborating and that was only one of hundreds of collaborations.”
Despite the success of Tea Leaf Dancers, Triana would not get the opportunity to prove her worth as a solo artist until several years later when a chance meeting with downtempo trip hop artist Bonobo changed her life forever. “Bonobo and I had a lot of mutual friends,” says the singer, now residing in Brighton. “I heard that he needed a singer for one of his tracks, I came on board and it just developed from there. I wasn’t really that familiar with his music.”
The result was The Keeper, a beautifully laid back soul classic that is reminiscent of Jill Scott at her most poignant. This collaboration would develop into a beautiful working relationship where the pair would bounce ideas off one another until each lovingly-crafted track on Triana’s debut album was complete. “I wrote the songs with a guitar and I would come up with the harmonies,” she advises. “With Bonobo, it’s like I brought the bare bones and he brought them to life. It was really fun.”
Even though Triana has been fortunate enough to work with two of the world’s leading electronic music producers, she is adamant that both happened as a result of good luck. “None of it was pre-determined,” states Triana. “I didn’t work with Bonobo because he is a massive producer. It was because he was a good friend and I feel really comfortable with him.”

In person, Triana is every bit as captivating and endearing as the music she creates. Taking a break from signing promotional copies of Lost Where I Belong in the Ninja Tune headquarters, the singer advises: “The whole time I was doing the album, I was just praying that it would touch people. It’s nice when people come up to me and tell me that they really felt a certain song.”
Triana’s breathtaking brand of neo soul seems destined to captivate audiences in dimly lit, basement jazz bars throughout the world and her abstract lyricism means that her music has the ability to take on many different meanings. With over nine thousand followers on Myspace, Triana has over double the amount of fans as label mate and 2009 Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle, and this is before her album has even been released. This beautiful lady seems to be on the verge of a cult phenomenon.
Lost Where I Belong is out now via Ninja Tune.

Climate Camp 2010-nature doesnt
All photography by Amelia Gregory unless otherwise stated.

Over the past few years I have become increasingly embedded in the process of Climate Camp, page so I am well aware that the run up to this year’s Climate Camp has been more fraught with difficulties than ever – but as a spectacularly open grassroots non-heirarchical direct action organisation we would be the first to acknowledge this fact. We argued long and hard about whether RBS was an appropriate target for this year’s activities, pharmacy and we picked our spot without really checking in with Scottish activists who were not present at the meeting, nurse thereby alienating some of our allies… so it’s a testament to the movement we’ve created that I left the Edinburgh camp feeling that Climate Camp, whatever nebulous thing that might be, is stronger than ever. We may not have grown in numbers but there has been a definite increase in the quality of active participation and we are slowly becoming more diverse too – there was a notable improvement in our age, class and racial make up this year, though we still have a long way to go.

Climate Camp 2010-camp life
Climate Camp 2010-scene

And we were successful – we didn’t for one moment imagine that we would make the same kind of splash in the national media as we have in other more southern based years (journalists are notoriously bad at travelling for any kind of story: witness the lack of press surrounding our extremely successful Ratcliffe on Soar action in October 2009) but we certainly made big news in the Scottish press, we did loads of outreach and best of all WE GOT IN THE WAY. We shut shit down and generally made a nuisance of ourselves that served to highlight climate and community wrecking investments in tar sands, open cast coal and biofuels. We’ve cost RBS and the companies it funds a certain amount of money and reputation, and we’ve got people talking.

Climate Camp 2010-welcome
Climate Camp 2010-setting up site
Setting up site.

So, back to the beginning. I was part of the initial Land Grab on Wednesday evening…. which meant taking two days to get up to Scotland and not at any point giving away our whereabouts. On arrival at our destination we scrambled through fields in search of the huge seven tonne truck that transports our big marquee poles, already parked in the middle of the manicured lands that belong to the RBS HQ. From there I walked into the adjoining field and marvelled at our audacity, for we’ve never been this close to our target before. There it was, the HQ lit up like a giant christmas tree well into the night, rumoured to be so large that it supports its very own supermarket. It seemed almost impossible that with only a hundred people we might take this second field too, but take it we did because soon people were trundling around with wheelbarrows full of tat (an all encompassing word to describe all the stuff we need to run a camp). From the top of the man made mound we could see right into the glass walled HQ, where bored workers were no doubt entertained by us for a few days before RBS decreed they should work from home.

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By the time I got up the next morning the site was already humming with activity and new campers who had joined us over the course of the night when they heard about our location via text and twitter. This year’s site, as well as being the cheekiest we have ever taken was also the most beautiful, and abundant with wildlife: mice, frogs and lots and lots of slugs. It’s long layout did however put paid to the permaculture plans we have adhered to in previous years, and necessitated a long walk from one end to the other.

Climate Camp 2010-set up

My role at Climate Camp has settled into a bit of a routine – taking photos, video and twittering. It leaves precious little time for physical work around site and I’m usually to be found in the media tent or rushing around on an action. We had incredibly bad reception on this site, and I soon became friendly with the Comms tent which was sited on the top of the hill and had a better 3G signal. For those of you who don’t know what I’m wittering on about, Comms refers to our defence and communications system which works by collating information from people on all the gates around site. It’s a 24 hour a day job and this year it was skill shared in a most impressive way for the first time.

Climate Camp 2010-media team
Some of the media team.

I think we’d all been fearful that this camp would be much less well attended than previous ones, but by Friday I estimate that there were almost 1000 people on site, and it felt as though they were all there for a purpose. At Blackheath last year we really focused on outreach and both that and our location ensured rather a lot of sightseeing which unfortunately meant that direct action took a major back seat to workshops. This time the workshops timetable was slimmer, and from early on there was a notable amount of small affinity groups planning direct action in the tall grass. This I think is a good development. And take direct action we did – every day. Here are some of the best actions I took part in:

Climate Camp 2010-refugee camp

1. Taking the land, obviously.
The biggest direct action of them all – it’s hard not to be nervous with an action like this on which the rest of Climate Camp depends. We stopped in at some charity shops for entertaining cut price CDs on our way northwards, and as we drove towards our swooping point we played the Star Wars theme tune at top volume. Despite our huge truck and noisy scrambling it took the police at least half an hour to arrive, by which time we were able to hold the space and had started erecting tents by torchlight. It did, however, mean that the advertised swoop the next day was a bit of a damp squib, and some of the participants must have felt a bit left out of all the excitement.

Climate Camp 2010-site take
Erecting the first marquees on site by torchlight.

2. Raising a Ruckus
On Friday we held a merry little dance parade around the RBS offices, culminating in an incursion into a conveniently open entrance where we jumped up and down in the doorway whilst security looked bemused and staff gazed down from the floors above. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, a lone activist had infiltrated the offices as a banker and stuck herself to a reception desk, where she berated RBS for agreeing to fund Vedanta’s mining activities on the sacred lands of the Dongria Kondh tribe in India. We later learnt that she had changed her name to Dongria Kondh by deed poll the week before, declaring that she would only change it back if RBS retracted funding. Fortunately it was announced this week that India has blocked the mining operation. Though I quite like Dongria Kondh as a name….

Climate Camp rouser
Climate Camp rouser door
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3. A Lady Gaga tribute: the Dirty Oil dance action
Conscious of Climate Camp’s decision to descend on Scotland without much forethought about how we could support local struggles I volunteered to attend the solidarity demo against a new coal mine at Cousland, but then I was reminded that I had also promised to document my Green Kite Midnight friends’ musical action. Lady Gaga won out in the end. Standing inside a small candy striped marquee we learnt new lyrics to Poker Face, featuring the immortal lines:

It’s getting hot, the planet’s nearly shot
We’ll make them stop, we’re putting up a block

Tar sands is dirty oil
Can’t use my, can’t use my taxes no
To invest in dirty oil

Climate Camp 2010-gaga rehearsal
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil
Rehearsing dance moves and getting ready to leave.

By midday we were ready to take our act to the streets of Edinburgh. With black bin bag bows in hair and fluorescent waistcoats we marched with resolve towards the biggest branch of RBS on St Andrews Square…. to find it already closed. Closed by the threat of song and dance. Score! We then set off on a tour through the town centre, jumping an RBS fringe stage for a special ten minute non-sponsored rendition. You can watch this here. We taught some onlookers the dance moves, bumped into the Greenwash Guerillas en route and handed out loads of leaflets.

Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-on steps
Climate Camp 2010-Dirty Oil Gaga-fringe stage
Crowds watch us at the Fringe
Climate Camp 2010-fringe audience
and the Greenwash Guerillas…
Climate Camp 2010-Greenwash Guerillas

4. Sunday site incursion
I knew there were plans afoot but I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mass of people dancing towards me in white paper boiler suits. And then they carried on dancing their way over the bridge to RBS, pushing the police back with ease and racing around the corner towards an unguarded part of the RBS HQ. When I got there it became apparent that they had completely taken the police by surprise and several windows had been smashed as the morass propelled forward. For a short moment chaos reigned as the police tried and failed to contain the seething crowd (who needs Black Bloc when you’ve got White Bloc, as one twitterer noted) and they were successfully able to de-arrest several people.

RBS site incursion march
RBS site incursion
RBS site invasion tussle
RBS Sunday invasion

Unfortunately this short point of panic enabled the police to gain the upper hand, and if the intention had been to get in and hold the building we had lost the head start. After two arrests there was a brief stand off with police at the bridge and the action petered out, the white garbed frontline on the bridge replaced by a large white fluffy bunny. I kid thee not.

Climate Camp 2010-white bunny

At our evening plenary a dampener was put on the situation almost immediately. Unfortunately the action had been badly timed to coincide with a speech from our visiting tar sands activists, who had felt seriously disrespected by the disruption to their workshop. They were also uncomfortable with the apparent violence of smashing windows, as were a few others. Through skilful facilitation we were able to talk through these issues, with many good points being made that Climate Camp comprises a diverse range of people who use different tactics, and whilst we would never ever condone physical violence against people, corporate property is another matter altogether. All successful direct action campaigns have attacked physical infrastructure, from the Suffragettes to the 1990s road protest movement. Causing infrastructure damage hits a company where it hurts: their pockets.

Climate Camp 2010-meeting
An early site-wide meeting.

We’ve always been very careful with our language, although the media often insists on referring to us as “peaceful” or NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action). In another twist seasoned activists have levelled many criticisms at us over the past few years with regards to us being too media friendly. For many this action proved that we really are capable of doing more than the media stunts and banner drops of recent times. It was also acknowledged that whilst we could sympathise with the feelings of First Nations activists it could not dictate the way that Climate Camp works, and indeed whilst we should work hard at international bonds we should not deify indigenous peoples above our local communities. We finished the meeting with a euphoric group hug that seemed to express: Yes! We are powerful together! We can break through police lines and inflict serious physical damage to a building! With a bit more intent we could have got into the HQ and dug in for the duration: of that I have no doubt.

Climate Camp 2010-serving dinner
Serving dinner at the South Coast neighbourhood.

5. The RBS Trojan Pig leaking molasses outside Cairn Energy offices
At just past 9am I dropped my half drunk tea and ran full tilt out of the cafe where I had been sitting on Lothian Road. Ahead of me a group of people in black ceremoniously carried a large pink pig – eyes painted with the RBS logo – up the impressive granite steps of the offices for Cairn Energy, who received £117 million in loans from RBS last year, some of which helped them to start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland. Two activists sprayed molasses against the side of the building in decorative swirls as more molasses seeped out of the pig and down the steps. A security guard briefly looked on, but never moved the large pink carcass which was reported later that day as forlornly pushed aside on the steps. Ironically it is only because of climate change and melting ice that Cairn Energy are able to drill in the polar regions as new oil reserves are revealed. By coincidence a Greenpeace ship reached the drill rig on our day of action, where it was met by a Danish warship. It is hoped that lots of activists will join Crude Awakening, a day of mass action against oil supported by Climate Camp on Saturday October 16th in London.

Cairn Trojan Pig parade
Cairn Trojan Pig molasses
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6. Shutting down Nicolson Street branch of RBS
The weather was not kind to us on our main day of action, and getting lost en route to my next destination didn’t help. By just after 10am I was soaked through to the skin. Across the entrance to Nicolson Street RBS three of my friends glued themselves together with green posters pinned to their fronts that said “Ask me why I won’t bank with RBS“. As customers arrived they engaged them in conversation and then let them duck under their arms. With musicians and a small gaggle of Lady Gaga impersonators I went inside to be greeted by an old man grumbling bad-temperedly at the counter. He then proceeded to watch several reprises of the Dirty Oil song and dance routine, by now familiar to all. Next up was a reinvigorated version of the Gloria Gaynor classic I Will Survive, and as we moved outside the police finally arrived. I went to upload some tweets and when I returned journalists and photographers were out in force and the branch had been closed. Later that day another bunch of activists dressed in bin bags and dripping in molasses closed down the same branch.

Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS
Climate Camp 2010-Nicholson-RBS 2

7. We’ve built a Rhino Siege Tower!
Yes really. At the top of the hill above RBS what looked like a watch tower had risen during the course of the camp, gaining painted corrugated metal sides and a roof. And perhaps best of all a huge paper mache Rhino head attached to it’s derriere. I got back from the mornings actions to find a huge gaggle of people surrounding the tower, all dressed in wonderful outfits, inspired by medieval battle, clowns, animals and pagan dress. And then we waited…. and waited… and joked about slow action being the new slow food movement. Finally, we were ready to roll. The siege tower was on wheels. And with people guiding it via a series of ropes and pulleys it began to inch it’s way around the wind break and down the hill as we all held our breath and prayed that it didn’t topple into the bank of photographers waiting below. This process took about four hours, by which time I’d long since stopped worrying that I would miss anything crucial every time I went to recharge my damn iphone again. Over at the bridge a series of mollassapaults were fired onto the HQ by black clad activists. And then as we finally crawled towards the gate the rain really set in. Dancing animals met lines of riot police and squirted silly string over their heads as the Siege Tower finally cleared a low hanging branch and the rhino headbutted a police van.

Climate Camp Rhino Seige Tower
Climate Camp 2010-scary clown
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-hits van

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line of riot cops so bemused. What the hell were we doing? On the side of the tower There Is No Planet B had been painted over at some point during the long journey to say There Is No Plan. My camera decided to complain about the incessant rain. It packed up. I decided to call it a day, and soon so did many soggy others. The Guardian’s live blog had long since stopped reporting on our actions of the day since most of them were done in the morning – including a very brilliant banner drop off the roof of Forth Energy in Leith in protest of a new and huge biomass scheme that would require the mass importation of vast quantities of wood chip.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-frontline
Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino-sillystring
mollassapault tim morozzo
The mollassapault. Photography by Tim Morozzo.

And so, we didn’t give the mainstream media the huge action they might have liked. Instead we gave them lots of small and effective affinity group actions across Edinburgh and beyond, as planned. Topped off with the most surreal action of them all – a Rhino Siege Tower that effectively closed down the RBS HQ merely through creative farce and the power of suggestion. Sometimes my heart is so full of love for the thing that is Climate Camp that it feels fit to burst.

Climate Camp 2010-Seige Rhino

Other highlights of this years’ camp included a storming ceilidh (apologies to the Scottish for making this word our own) with my band Green Kite Midnight, spoken word from Harry Giles, visits from Fringe comedians Albie Philbin Bowman and Josie Long, and dancing long into the night after our day of action. Despite all the trials and tribulations of being so involved with Climate Camp I can’t wait to see what we come up with next. Even if we didn’t Break the Banks you’ve got to admit it was a damn good slogan, and we’ve successfully managed to highlight the investment of our money in fossil fuels to a far wider public. Now we just need to change the system that encourages wanton consumption of fossil fuels to the wide scale detriment of the only planet we have to live on. Who’s up for helping out?

You can watch lots more of the videos that I took on my Qik channel here.

Climate Camp 2010-Albie Philbin Bowman
Albie Philbin Bowman performs for us.

Many other inspiring actions happened across the course of the camp, but these did not include the supposed oil spill on the A8 on Monday morning, as press released by the police. Our targets have always been corporations and the government not innocent people, but isn’t it somehow predictable that the press picked up on the “oil spill” so relentlessly – happy to reel it off as fact without adequate research or proof. More on how the press have related to this year’s Climate Camp in my next blog post.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos
A beautiful painted compost loo.
Climate Camp 2010-anarchist baby
Climate Camp 2010-RBS bridge
Climate Camp 2010-bunny

Climate Camp 2010-media
Our best 3G signal for getting onto the internet was found at the top of the rise. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Since I’ve returned from Climate Camp in Edinburgh the media backlash against us has began. Perhaps we have grown complacent about our cosy relationship with the mainstream media over the past few years? Thwarted in their desire for juicy riot porn the Guardian instead turned to the trouble I had been experiencing on twitter since the start of camp, buy information pills when one troll turned into two, which then turned into a whole host of the little critters. Because trolls always have friends and they know how to find each other. And once they do they like to have a feeding frenzy.

Climate Camp 2010-mediateam
The media team: small but very hard working.

So how did this all start? Well, unfortunately I feel very much to blame and I’ve learnt my lesson. At the start of this year I went on an anti EDL march in London, and whilst there I picked up a follower of the EDL sympathising persuasion. Now, I’ve never followed him, but we did engage in conversation every now and again on twitter. He’s a very persistent sort of chap, and I thought “ow, bless, he’s sadly misguided but essentially a sweet man despite his extreme right wing nationalistic views – maybe he’ll learn something if he follows me.” He even offered to help out with my website. Well, that was my biggest mistake: EDL sympathisers are not for the turning. So, he knew about the #climatecamp hashtag from me, and he made it his personal business to stalk me on it throughout Climate Camp – describing me as his #twittercrush and Climate Camp Vamp on @replies to my personal twitter feed, loitering on the perimeter of the campsite and offering me lifts home from Edinburgh in his “gun metal Aston” when I tweeted about waiting for the bus… and posting offensive tweets to all and sundry through the #climatecamp hashtag which only served to attract even more horrible little trolls from far and wide. Anthropogenic global warming denialists, fascists, homophobes, racists, sexists – you name it, they all came running.

Climate Camp 2010-all ages
People of all ages come to Climate Camp.

I managed to ignore these trolls – because what else can you do? Like a greedy little pug, if you feed them they just keep coming back for more. It looked like things might die down as the camp started to wind up. And then. James Randerson on the Guardian environment blog saw fit to publish an article featuring some tweets from these trolls – “Twitter Backfires” screeched the headline. As if a few trolls would stop interested people and Climate Camp supporters from going straight to the Climate Camp twitter feed (wow, what a novel idea!) or reading through to the interesting and relevant tweets in the #climatecamp stream rather than fatuous fake retweets reinforcing every known stereotype of “hippy activist”. We are all posh, anarchist, crybaby, smelly, student, lentil chomping, yurt dwelling, marxists. Wow! I’d really love to meet someone who embodies all of those things in one person!

Climate Camp 2010-child
Climate Camp 2010-girl
Just some of the very happy well-adjusted children on Climate Camp.

The outcome of the Guardian blog? It fed the trolls a huge amount of publicity and unwittingly condoned their actions… and by default their opinions. This on the environment blog of a left leaning newspaper – which supposedly supports our actions. And here it was saying our protest was a failure purely because we didn’t “own” the twittersphere. Sour grapes because we didn’t provide them with the exciting coverage the mainstream media demands of us? Seems like it to me. And utter bullshit. Because at the end of the day most people on Climate Camp don’t use twitter – and have no idea of this storm on a Tweetdeck. They couldn’t care less – they were on camp, taking direct action together, on the site of the HQ, in an RBS branch in Edinburgh, handing out leaflets about tarsands, marching with locals on the proposed site of a huge new open cast coal mine or teaching subversive lyrics at an impromptu performance on a Fringe stage. There are so many other ways to reach people, and twitter is but one tool in the outreach box.

Climate Camp 2010-compost loos change
Changing the straw bales in the loos.

Suddenly the trolls were back in business. And so I’ve spent the past few days doing my best blocking irrelevant trolls and aborting the #climatecamp hashtag amongst supportive followers. It’s been a swift learning curve. But one big thing I’ve realised is this: you can’t change some people. I should have blocked my troll the minute he started following me. I still think he’s a sad misguided individual – one with an awful lot of lonely time on his hands to spend a whole week trolling on the #climatecamp hashtag – but he’s also a massive arse to take such pleasure out of petty nastiness. The fact that he claims to care about the environment “I plant trees” – big woop-de-doo – makes his actions particularly noxious. What’s more he’s a passive aggressive EDL sympathiser with far right leanings who rather scarily knows an awful lot about me and The Guardian has given him and his ilk a legitimacy that is far from worthy. But to equate a problem on twitter with a wholesale failure of the camp is just ridiculous; whilst this whole episode may personally have made my life quite unpleasant, none of this will affect those who are committed to taking direct action as part of Climate Camp. So in the end a big old #fail for the trolls. I’d like to believe they are even now scuttling back into their little troll homes… but I doubt they will be able to stop their fingers from itching towards the keyboard.

Climate Camp 2010-set up boards
Now, where do these go?
Climate Camp 2010-wheelchair
Climate Camp is accessible to all.

Trolls: a few words. This blog is moderated and you aren’t welcome on here. I wholly reserve the right to delete you. You’ve been warned.

You can read about all the actions we took on Climate Camp at the RBS HQ in Edinburgh on my blog here.

Categories ,AGW, ,Climate Camp, ,Climate Camp Vamp, ,Direct Action, ,edinburgh, ,EDL, ,Hashtags, ,Media, ,RBS, ,Trolls, ,twitter, ,Twittercrush

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