Urbanism
Environment
Design

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2up2down is getting more press coverage with a mention in last weekend's observer.

Rowan Moore writes... "Around Liverpool, it is easy to spot the zones blessed by HMR. They are the wrecked ones, the hopeless ones. Those left alone, even in the poorest areas, have coherence, and functioning ecologies of high streets and homes. Some show signs of self-initiated renewal: flowerpots outside houses, new businesses opening up. It is all the worse for the fact that Liverpool was, and partly still is, a wonderfully constructed city. It has magnificent parks, beautiful topography, and handsome streets. Many of the houses being destroyed would sell for a million or more if they were in London.

Meanwhile the city holds an art Biennial, the latest edition of which has just opened. It could be an all-too-familiar stunt, the use of art as a front and a distraction. Except that at least some of the artists invited by the Biennial have realised that the most significant issue in Liverpool is the devastation caused by public policies.

In Anfield, the Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk has used her Biennial funding to get together a group of local residents, and reopen a bakery closed by the effects of HMR. The idea is both to recreate what was a social centre, and make a place where people can get decent food. They are also planning to rebuild houses in the same block: at this point it goes beyond being art, but something with business plans and funding proposals.

During the Biennial Van Heeswijk has set up bus tours, modelled on the tourist trips around Beatles and football sites, that take you around the devastated zones. They include heartbreaking meetings with victims, and stories of the effects of "managed decline", which is the official term for the Grozny-like landscape they have made of Anfield. They tell of fires, floods, rising crime, and of a man who watched as a digger "took out the face of my friend's house", so as to make a photo opportunity for a local politician."

Read the full article here