Seriously Showa: Double Dressers Mare Street, Hackney 2009 
Angela & Ramon, Austin, Texas 2004 
Look No Hands! Hackney, 2009 
Girl's gone and got herself a shiny new website. Go have a look!
www.ninamanandhar.com
If you don't know about 'Form' 696' you better get to know, quick! In a nutshell it's a risk assesment form that the Metropolitan police and 21 London boroughs are rolling out that makes it mandatory for anyone hosting a gig or clubnight to fill out and submit or risk facing 6 months in Pentoville or a £20,000 fine. It's long and beaurocratic but worse it has faced criticism for having alterior motives to racially profile audiences.
The form urges promoters to state whether 'a particular ethnic group is attending' so that the po po can assess risk. Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones frontman is leading the opposition as CEO of UK Music, the musicians' rights body who are against form 696. Sharkey reckons that black music is being targeted by the Met and his views are supported by other leading questions on the form: "Music style to be played/performed (eg bashment, R&B, garage)", reads one section, while another gives examples of types of musical artists as "DJs, MCs, etc".
The main problem is that the Police become the key decision makers in what musical genre is high risk, so you can guess what that means. No more decent Raves. I can't see many panpipe nights beings shut down or indie club nights. So if you wanna keep going out raving sign up to the facebook group/petition and save a slice of what makes this city special.
If Feargal don't get his way, hold tight for a new dawn of illegal raves. which means long trips to fields just outside the m25 crammed into your mates shitty little car, muddy trainers from dancing in fields and the fear of increased violence at lawless parties. so start petitioning.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42439007135
Via Timeout i just found out about this project called Bling Ya Bike run by Lamonte Johnsons at Brixton St Vincent's Community Centre. You can take your bike their and have it pimped out by some local young people. Funded by the mayor of Lambeth the scheme seeks to encourage creativity through artistic expression and offers an opportunity for communities to realise their artistic potential. Young people can either have their own bikes blinged in an attempt to make them less dependent on branding and more dependent on their own expression and taste or be part of the team that fixes up the bikes thus stimulating their creative energy and encouraging participation in positive excercise.
Johnson explains: ‘I use the bikes as a medium. We deal with a lot of issues like gangs and trying to use skills in a more positive way. The bikes can be the first chance to pull the kids back.'
big up Lamonte and all the creatives working for social change on whatever scale! City Hall, town hall or church hall.
http://www.artworksdirect.org/index.htm
