Exposure and disclosure
Our first five days at the market have been wonderful, challenging and exhausting. We had a multitude of hiccups, largely involving the Lambeth Council bureaucracy – and us forgetting things. But actually being in the market and talking to people has been good, and we’ve heard an amazing array of stories. The experience of being on the stall all day, being so explicitly public, has a particular quality. It feels very exposing – it reminds me of the way I feel doing political campaigning and protest – you put yourself into public space and open yourself up to critique, conflict and rants, as well as incredible encounters. It’s not an easy thing to do, but there’s nothing quite like it and what comes of it is very unpredictable.
Having our stall, our salt pots, and offering an invitation to people to contribute something particular gives the experience more structure – a framework that the conversations hang around. But there’s still an enormous variety in the way people respond and interact with the project.
I’ve had one conversation so far that felt contentious. It was interesting, and it was a subject that I had expected and hoped would come up. It was slightly marred by the fact that the guy who was talking with me seemed a little pissed, and was not entirely interested in listening. But he highlighted a few questions that are at the core of this project: how personal histories bring to light political histories, and overlapping stories of privilege and oppression. He took unction that we were using salt from South Africa as our currency – suggesting that our White European ancestors stole land from his African ancestors to acquire their wealth, and that this was a huge affront in a place like Brixton. The stories are so much more complex than that, and he wasn’t prepared to talk about Jewish migration within this context – but issues of colonialism, race and power have to be confronted when we talk about migration. This conversation also highlighted an issue we have worked with throughout Origination, particularly in the piece ‘Don’t Look Back’. Delving into family history can raise things that make us hugely uncomfortable, or things that are painful and we’d rather not know. It can also raise questions of whether we are responsible for the actions of our ancestors. I think the project we’re doing here in Brixton acknowledges the problematic nature of looking at our personal connection to history and politics. It is not an attempt to merrily ‘celebrate multiculturalism’ – it touches on raw points.
There are tensions and frictions in talking about the past. There are wounds in family histories, and it’s deeply personal and sometimes painful to ask people to share these stories. Migration and cultural adaptation can often mean that people leave unwanted baggage behind. So far, forty people have stopped to share a story with us – each of these stories have involved disclosure, and the generosity of sharing something personal with a stranger. It’s a huge privilege to listen and also a lot to digest.
