Crisis of Civilization film screening

If you liked the last film screening then this one could be even better. Weaving together film footage and animations, The Crisis of Civilization is a documentary feature that investigates the causes of global crises.

The screening will be followed by a Q & A session with the films director Dean Puckett and all the power needed will be generated from the sun and the wind. If popular we are hoping to make this a regular event on the first Thursday of every month showing different films at the Grow-Heathrow Off-grid cinema. Please get in contact (info@transitionheathrow.com) if you have a film you would like to show and ideally could offer some discussion afterwards.

WHEN: Thursday 10th May, 8pm

Building a straw bale long house

During the week of the 7th – 13th May, Transition Heathrow will be building a communal, straw bale long house entirely from recycled or reclaimed materials.

The structure will be wrapped around an existing, unused frame of the expansive old green houses that exist on site. The foundations will be made from old car tyres that were destined for the scrap heap, filled with rubble to provide structural integrity an drainage. The floor will be composed of salvaged scaffold boards. The straw bales, that will make up the bulk of the structure, provide great insulation from the summer heat, winter cold and the noise of the outside world. They will be rendered in clay dug from the site and this natural material will preserve the high carbon contents for many years, making the construction carbon negative. Ultimately the roof will be tiled using recycled reformed drinks cans.

In short we will create a beautiful, tranquil space for the community to use amidst the bustle of the Heathrow villages and virtually for free. However, we need your help to make this happen. Many hands make light work. You will leave the week equipped with knowledge of materials and techniques required to build one of these wonderfully cheap and sustainable structures for yourself. If you would like to have a hand in creating an inspirational space whilst learning these sought after skills from experienced practitioners then this is a great opportunity to do so. Food and fun shall be provided in abundance throughout the week.

Please email info@transitionheathrow.com to book a sleeping space.

BAA: hands off the Heathrow villages

Here is a letter we sent off to all the local newspapers this week: The message is clear. BAA lost all the arguments on Heathrow expansion a long time ago and their latest desperate attempt to get a third runway is laughable to say the least. Local residents and environmental campaigners are tired of repeating the same old arguments that resulted in the plans being scrapped two years ago but we have to remember why we won.

Locally a third runway at Heathrow would mean 700 homes completely demolished with thousands more peoples livelihoods wrecked, the excellent Heathrow Primary School would be tarmacked and hundreds of dead bodies at Cherry Lane Cemetery would be dug up to make way for a new motorway. The whole of West London would be blighted by the extra noise and air pollution and then you have the massive impacts on climate change and the environment – a third runway alone would result in 220,000 extra flights a year, in emission terms equivalent to Kenya’s yearly emissions output.

Last week, thirty people gathered outside the gate of ‘Grow Heathrow’; our squatted community garden site which was originally occupied as part of the No 3^rd runway campaign, as a show of solidarity with everyone who would be affected by a 3rd runway. A banner was held up which read: “Return of the killer runway. You resurrect it. We will bury it. Again.”  This is a threat which we believe thousands of activists all over the country and all over the world will keep should the 3rd runway ever come back on the table.

MASS ACTION: Big six energy bash

On May 3rd, the same day as the London Mayoral elections, The Climate Justice Collective will be taking to the streets to block the energy monopoly going on behind closed doors at the UK Energy Summit.

The summit will see companies from the Big Six including EDF, EON, RWE Npower and Scottish Power, as well as oil giants like Shell and BP, conspiring with government to line their pockets at the cost of climate crisis and millions of people locked into fuel poverty. The UK Energy Summit is the wrong people asking the wrong questions and proposing the wrong solutions.

The Big Six energy companies are the obstacle to an energy system that could keep the sea levels down and get the heating on in fuel poverty homes. We want a fair, democratic and clean energy system, not a corporate monopoly – the UK Energy Summit cannot go ahead!

Be in Central London on Thursday 3rd May. Be ready to go at 11am. Keep an eye out on our Twitter (@CJ_Collective) for updates on meeting points and live and instant action plans.

Facebook Event: http://on.fb.me/HAKIdq

This blog was taken from the Plane Stupid website

The fight to save squatting

Today the House of Lords will debate plans to criminalise squatting for a final time. Clause 145 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO), which seeks to criminalise squatting in residential properties, will be scrutinised as Baroness Sue Miller (Lib Dem) and Baroness Lister (Labour) have tabled a number of amendments to mitigate some of its worst impacts on homeless and vulnerable people.

Additional concerns have also been raised in the last week, with the release of a report in The Guardian which suggests this clause could cost the taxpayer as much as £790million over the next five years, outweighing the entire savings that the rest of the Bill intends to make.

I’m a squatter myself, so it’s not surprising that I’m urging peers today to vote against criminalization. But the squatter community’s unlikely allies in this fight tell a different story, one of widespread opposition from many quarters.

Last summer the government held a three month consultation entitled “Options for dealing with squatting”. One might have expected negative results given the sustained right-wing media coverage attacking squatters both before and during the consultation period. However, out of the 2217 people who responded to the consultation, 96% didn’t want to see any action taken to criminalise squatting. Even more surprisingly, only 10 people bothered to write in to say they had been a victim of squatting. But the government ignored its own consultation, and three days before the LASPO bill was to be voted on in the House of Commons, Ken Clarke tacked on an amendment to criminalise squatting in residential properties – this despite the fact that there is no direct link between squatting and legal aid. 

From the Metropolitan Police to the Law Society, unexpected bodies have come out against the government’s proposals to criminalise squatting. The Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association are adamant that the existing laws are already more than adequate and the Metropolitan Police have even said that the law is already “broadly in the right place”. 160 leading legal experts wrote a letter to the government which explained the misleading information being put out around the already existing laws. Many organisations, including the Magistrates Association, have also expressed concerns about the cost of it all during a time of austerity measures.

The homeless charity Crisis have urged the Government to scrap the proposals and have argued strongly against essentially making homeless and vulnerable people criminals for attempting to gain a roof over their heads. Crisis research shows that 40% of homeless people have used squatting as a last resort to prevent sleeping rough. It’s one thing to criminalise squatting, it’s another thing to do it in the middle of a housing crisis when homelessness rates are soaring.

Even Channel 4 went squatting to investigate the situation. George Clarke’s programme ‘The Great British Property Scandal’ highlighted the fundamental problem. There are an estimated 1 million properties lying empty across the UK. Squatting attempts to utilise these empty buildings – criminalisation will only encourage owners who own empty properties to keep them empty.

Squatting for community self-defence

I live at Grow Heathrow, a squatted community garden in the path of the now cancelled Heathrow 3rd runway. Set up in March 2010 in opposition to the runway and the destruction of the homes in its path, the community market garden project continues to thrive with the support of the local community, local council and MP.  After 30 tonnes of rubbish were cleared from the site, what was an abandoned wasteland now hosts numerous community events and gatherings. Although exempt from the proposed new law (as commercial property and not residential), many more similar projects around the UK will be threatened if the LAPSO bill passes.

Now, more than ever before, we need places like Grow Heathrow to build community self-defence. As the majority in this country struggle under the government’s harsh austerity programme, it will be more important to reclaim space anywhere we can. Land distribution patterns in this country reveal the true extent of inequality and privilege – 1% of the population own 70% of the land. Squatting is one method for reversing this trend.

The creation of alternative worlds is inextricably linked to confronting this one and from my experience squatting does both things. ‘Occupy, create, resist’ is a notion that resonates strongly at Grow Heathrow. Occupy: take space, often made possible by squatting a piece of land or a building. Create: create the world you want to live in and would one day be willing to defend. And then Resist: once you come under attack for creating something which doesn’t match with the ideals of the state or global capitalism.

Today, squatters across the country are in ‘Resist’ mode, standing together with all those who recognise that criminalisation is unnecessary, unjust and unaffordable. We can’t allow the government to bypass democracy just in order to send out a message.

This blog has been re-posted from Open Democracy

Kaleidoscope performance residency

From the 6th- 10th June, Grow Heathrow needs YOU. Calling all with a background in; theatre, dance, poetry, movement, puppetry, music, visual arts, circus…. and anything else…

Grow Heathrow (our squatted community garden) are offering the opportunity to be part of a 5-day theatrical residency that explores the creative link between resistance, permaculture, occupation and transition. Immersed in the realities of group living within a place that would be destroyed by the third runway, we’ll build a freely creative and imaginative response to the history of Sipson’s fight against the third runway, Grow Heathrow and the Transition Town movement.

The residency will culminate in a performance in the local village and later on one at the Grow Heathrow site, both on Sunday 10th June. Although this is a 5 day residency, the first two days of devising are optional, and you can come on board just from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th if you are limited with time, although the whole shabang is advised

Timetable

Wed 6th – Thurs 7th: Nourishment, development and devising

Fri 8th – Sun 10th: Projecting, preparing, performing

Sunday 10th, 5pm and 8pm performances

This is a non-commercial, not for profit venture. £10 all-in to cover living costs on site. Deadline for applications: 01/05/2012 Please email kaleidoscope.transition@gmail.com for more information or to reserve a place, as numbers are limited, (including a little bit about yourself).

Happy Birthday Grow Heathrow!

On Saturday 4th March, Grow Heathrow celebrated two years of community food growing, bike maintenance and resistance to BAA’s plans for a third runway. Local residents and friends of the project gathered in the formerly abandoned greenhouses in Sipson for a day of live music, mural painting and a birthday cake competition.

Visitors were greeted by improvised tunes in the sunshine. The ad hoc band included a double bass, accordion and junk-yard drum kit. Around sixty people gathered in the main space as the cakes were being judged. Sipson resident Tracy said, “It’s great to see so many new faces here. Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard in making this project what it is today. It really shows what a community can do”.

The partially completed mural is taking shape nicely and is already brightening up the side of our donated construction site cabin. Conceived of by a friend of the project and street artist Barney, the design is centred around a train of leaves along the length of the building. Moving from left to right, the leaves change colour, to represent the transition from Autumn into Spring and Summer. Alongside this, the mural will display images from the world as it is today on one side, to the world that we’d like to see on the other.

Why not come down to Grow Heathrow as we’re finishing the painting to colour in a leaf or draw a wind turbine? Drop us a line at info@transitionheathrow.com for more details.

More photos from the day can be found on our Flickr

‘Lifting the veil’

We started the week-long residency, ‘Resistance is Beautiful’ at Grow Heathrow, with an introduction to a site I’ve heard a lot about, and through various activist networks have met many of those who live there. After a series of procrastinated opportunities I decided this was the perfect opportunity to visit.

What is resistance? That is where we started. To some it is the standing in opposition, to the others it is the proactive search and enaction of alternative realities. I err towards the first as my definition of resistance, and in my own work call the latter ‘imagineering’. Grow Heathrow is a site of resistance and imagineering – and embodies different meanings to different people – visitors and residents.

As the week progressed towards an ‘exhibition/show’ on the Saturday, efforts were made towards pulling together some collaborative work. My thoughts began with the idea of ‘The Great Eviction Game’ – a playful enaction of the potential eviction that could happen later this year in which the evictors are only allowed to evict the residents if they win a game that is played out on site, by the site’s rules. Taking the format of a ‘wide game’, i.e. different tasks to be completed at various stations – teams are not necessarily in competition, rather, the aim is for all to have an educational experience in which they are given an opportunity to embody the ethos of the site through shared activity.

After spending some time developing this idea, I decided it focused on an eventuality that did not need to be evoked at this point in time. I still think it would be a challenging and engaging way to approach police if/when they come to the gate – to challenge them to a game, immediately taking on the eviction in the site’s own terms – when the police refuse to play, it is they who first break the rules. After hearing about others’ ideas I couldn’t see a place for me to take part in them – partly due to lack of experience/skill/interest, and partly because I needed to leave site for the entire day preceding the show and so wouldn’t be able to help in any way with their development at a key point.

I started to think about my own relationship with the site – how was I engaging with it. I felt very at home in Grow Heathrow, largely because I could see the similarities between life there and my own, very outdoors-focused life on a boat. I began with the notion that we should do nothing on the Saturday, simply allow visitors to observe the site ‘in action’ and make some effort to ensuring that they feel able to ask questions/enter into discussion – potentially through shared food or participatory tasks. This idea was then challenged by another member of the group, with what I felt was a valid opposition – people are only coming to the site in the hope of seeing/doing something. To do nothing would be to disappoint, and could potentially be harmful. Not doing anything wasn’t avoiding the performative, as the ‘audience’ had already been invited and so performance was intrinsic to the day.

Given the limited time available, I spent most of the days thinking about how to make visible the life aesthetic and opted to do it through objects – offering insight into the operations and history of the site through its material objects – telling the stories of these objects through explanation and anecdote, integrating the ‘explanatory signs’ into the fabric of the object. This in turn, I hope allowed the viewer to interact with the object, and therefore the site and its workings, in a deeper way.

I made five signs as part of the project I’d call ‘lifting the veil’: On a piece of sheet music I stuck to the piano I wrote the notes ‘A’ and ‘E’ which on the site’s piano were linked to the adjoining hammers. Between staves I then wrote ‘play these notes…” when you hold down one thing you also hold down the adjoining” Augie March – and something also on dissonance and resistance. On a T-shirt in the free shop I wrote about the idea of a free shop being more than discarding unwanted items and picking up freebies, but as its potential to be a tool in helping us imagine futures without monetary transactions forming the basis of everything we do. On plant pot signs I wrote about the radical nature of growing our own food. On the inside of an inner tube situated within a car tyre I wrote of the multi-function of car tyres, as plant pots, barricades, etc. and this link to permaculture. On a postcard I hung up in the main living area, I mentioned how the postcards, pictures and posters hung up in that area are not just memories and histories, but also locate the site within the wider activist movement.

In terms of my experience working collaboratively – I felt as though I’d come to the residency expecting a greater focus on radical politics and activism and their link-up with the creative arts. At first I was disappointed that this was not the focus, however, I did gain a lot from working with artists who have a defined and developed artistic practice. In reflection, I also see that what I gained was the lived experience of merging radical politics and creativity by living in Grow Heathrow whilst having a creative practice.

I also now feel as though I can’t claim credit for ‘lifting the veil’ as it only came out of discussions with the group, around the fire, whilst working, washing-up and cooking – and in discussing their own projects. And so in that way, ‘lifting the veil’, like so many projects, is made up of collaborative and communal experience – it is just my own interpretation made manifest.

Guest post written by Will who took part in the Grow Heathrow arts residency

New Video ‘Everythings changing’

Grow Heathrow – “Everything’s Changing” from thecrisisofcivilization on Vimeo.

Here’s our latest campaign video made by Dean Puckett, who is also the filmmaker of new film The Crisis of Civilization. Dean was with us on the 1st March 2010 when Grow Heathrow was first occupied and some of the footage from that day, not seen ever before, is included in this video. Have a watch. 

Transition Heathrow public meeting

Do you live in or around the villages of Heathrow? Under the banner of the Transition Town Network, local residents are coming together to deal with the triple challenge of climate change, a world without cheap oil and a fragile financial system.

Our long term aim is to build thriving, resilient and sustainable communities within the Heathrow Villages. There will be an open Transition Heathrow meeting at the Sipson Community Centre on Wednesday 14th March, from 7pm-8.30pm

Come along to find out what it’s all about and how you can get involved.