East End Review

Tag: Maya Oppenheim

  • Documentary shows ‘human face’ behind the UK’s housing crisis

    Photograph: Nick Pomeroy
    Daisy-May Hudson outside her family’s temporary accommodation. Photograph: Nick Pomeroy

    Daisy-May Hudson and her family became homeless on 12 July 2013. When their landlord, a multinational supermarket, sold off their house, they were forced to pack up their belongings and vacate their home in Essex where they had lived for 13 years.

    Unable to afford soaring rents on a single parent income, the family had no choice but to declare themselves homeless. They were moved into a homeless hostel, a large institutional building, for one month. Then they were moved into a second half-way home, where they stayed for just under a year.

    Here, the low ceilings and pebble-dash walls were far from homely. Not only were they forced to share the microscopic bathroom and kitchen with another family, but they were prohibited from decorating or having visitors. “But who’d want to come?” says Daisy-May. “My sister’s school friends don’t even know she’s here.”

    Daisy-May, who now lives in Dalston with friends, decided to record the entire experience of displacement on film. Since then, she has turned 250 hours of fervent footage into a feature-length documentary called Half Way. She says that by documenting the emotional turmoil of living between homes “the film was able to serve as a coping mechanism for the family – a positive force in a time that was otherwise painfully stagnant”. What’s more, in breaking down the distinction between subject and director, this firsthand account offers a uniquely intimate insight into the trauma of homelessness.

    In the past few months, the family has been rehoused. Filming has finished and last month Daisy-May and a group of filmmakers managed to raise the £10,000 needed for post-production work.

    Daisy-May says that Half Way is an attempt to put a “human face” to the statistics behind the UK’s housing crisis and in so doing spark social change. The statistics she cites make grim reading. According to Shelter there are more than 1.8 million people on the waiting list for social housing.

    Families are the worst off, with over 70 per cent of rent or mortgage payers with children struggling or falling behind with payments as of January 2014. In Hackney, Shelter has found that the average annual salary would have to increase by more than £100,000 to keep up with house prices.

    In offering an honest and intimate depiction of one family’s tale of displacement, Half Way captures the desperate experience of homelessness from a family who endured and overcame it. In doing so, the documentary overturns callous misconceptions and stereotypes of homelessness.

    twitter.com/halfwaydocu

  • My Stuff – review

    Stuff and nonsense? Petri
    Stuff and nonsense? Petri Luukainen ponders his possessions in My Stuff

    Like many of us, Petri Luukainen had too much stuff. But unlike many of us, he decided to put everything he owned into storage for a year.

    In doing so, he embarked on an exciting ‘human experiment’ which he chose to film. The end result is My Stuff, Finnish docudrama based on the bizarre personal experiences of the director himself, Petri Luukainen.

    After a difficult break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Petri descends into quarter life existential crisis mode. He realises his possessions have come to define his very existence and failed to bring him any real happiness, and he finally reaches breaking point.

    To solve the problem, he decides to put all his possessions into storage. He is left alone, naked and possessionless in his empty apartment in Helsinki.

    Petri sets aside a year in which he can retrieve one item from storage per day. He also forbids himself from buying anything new during these 365 days. Day one sees him running through the snow butt-naked to retrieve his long coat – luckily this doubles up as a standby blanket for the night.

    Cutting through his clutter, Petri reappraises his life via his belongings. Each day, he struggles over what is more necessary – a toothbrush, a sock or a sofa.

    On the second day of the experiment, he collects his shoes, on the third his blanket and on the fourth his jeans. As the days progress, Petri discovers he can get by with one hundred things, this includes a laptop, debit card, diary and swimming trunks.

    In the attempt to discover what he needs to live a wholesome but comfortable life, Petri learns a lot over the course of the year. In turn, this 29-year old recognises the difference between possessions which he needs and those which he simply wants.

    After the screening at a Q&A session, the filmmaker confirmed it was an experiment that took a lot of courage. “I was forced to take control of my life, challenge my needs and actually be honest with myself,” he said.

    The film apparently came about by accident: “One day I looked around at all the useless shit in my crowded apartment which I’d bought to fulfil some spots in my soul and I thought ‘what would happen if I transported all this stuff someplace else?’. I needed a fresh start. My friends jokingly suggested I film it so we did.”

    As Petri is slowly freed from the burden of his possessions, he falls in love with a new girlfriend half way through the year.

    What is more, after his grandmother falls ill, she wisely points out that: “Life does not consist of things and things are just props,” summing up the fundamental message of the film.

    Through his own personal journey, Petri’s subtle yet bold documentary manages to shed light on the materialistic nature of consumer society.

    www.day-for-night.org/cinematheque

  • Painting the past in Another Country exhibition

    Skeleton by Matthew Krishanu
    Skeleton by Matthew Krishanu

    Another Country is the first exhibition to be held at The Nunnery, a new contemporary gallery located a stone’s throw from the Olympic Park. Since opening its doors in January, The Nunnery has showcased the work of two highly acclaimed, award-winning artists Cara Nahaul and Matthew Krishanu.

    These artists have come together to explore the themes of travel, dislocation and memory. They both use photographs from their childhood as starting points for their artwork. While Krishanu uses photos from his own childhood in India as inspiration, Nahaul uses photographs of her grandparents in Malaysia.

    The deft strokes, bold shapes and fresh colours of both artists leave the viewer wanting to know more about the distant lands they depict. But not only are these vibrant compositions easy on the eye, they also explore the artists’ deeply personal relationships to their past.

    Krishanu explain: “The paintings are about stepping into ‘another country’ – one created from a combination of old photographs, memory and imagination.

    “The show was initially inspired by the LP Hartley line ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’. I like the idea of being able to enter the past through a painting, as if it still exists. For me memory is about restructuring and re-imagining the past. Essentially, it is an opportunity for me to tell stories in paint.”

    While Khrishanu’s paintings depict his experience of growing up in India and embarking on childhood adventures and games with his brother, Nahaul’s paintings explore the far-off lands of her grandparents which she felt quite distant from.

    Nahaul says: “I was struck by this idea of looking at my own past as something foreign – a physical space unknown and elsewhere. I embrace this dislocation and I try to reflect that in the paintings.”

    In using paint as a way to access the past, both artists explore the complex relationship between the past and memory. Furthermore, by using art to re-imagine the past and transform old memories, the exhibition unearths the ever-shifting, circuitous nature of memory.

    Both artists have been keen to maintain the community spirit of Bow Arts – the educational arts charity which runs The Nunnery. Since the exhibition opened, Krishanu and Nahaul have worked with several local schools, organised talks and are planning an exhibition tour on Thursday 6 March.

    Another Country is at The Nunnery, 181 Bow Road, E3 2SJ until 6 April