On Saturday the 2nd of March we had a giant street event for children affected by housing issues. In Newham 1 in 12 children are homeless. We call our weekly Saturday events where we meet people stalls, but you can think about them as places where we all hold the street for a couple of hours. Our weekly point of public contact is a street stall where people suffering from housing injustice can share their stories and plan actions. At a time when much pubic space is either being privatised or is heavily controlled the this is an essential thing to do. We also find that all methods at our disposal for sharing knowledge and experience need to be employed. Not only because different people learn in different ways but because we also claim the right to use artistic expression as a method of creating joy and resistance. This stall included a display of many painted banners sharing political and social knowledge of the local and international struggle for a just world in the face of increasing capitalist oppression. Many of these banners have beautiful contributions made by many children and some adults.

Our event also included a puppet show. It made use of some the puppets described here a new character

The regularity of the street stalls is incredibly important taking place as they do once a week. ‘…the essence of movements entails “repeated public displays” of alternative political and cultural values by a collection of people acting together outside officially sanctioned channels. (It is because those official channels have failed some people that movements arise.)‘¹ . We make use of street furniture and anything we can to create our displays. In some ways you could say this is a form of gorilla nomadic space claiming and the more badly they treat people the more we will do it.

The methods of making this work are described here . All the art work here unless otherwise stated is made in the Focus E15 campaign and much is either initiated or made by Andrew Cooper. I state this as I assert the right to say it is art, and we need to create a culture where this kind of work is supported.

1. Reed, T.V., (2019), The Art of Protest, Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the present ↩︎

Come, take part in an easy to understand visual presentation using drawings and puppets

6;15pm Thursday 28th Sept

Papa’s Café 10-17 Pulross Road

Brixton, London SW9 8AF

Capitalism is covered in mystery and misinformation. We’re told that it is a fair system that provides for the needs everyone and if you work hard you will be rewarded. This is a lie and we can see the contradictions very easily!

Andrew Cooper is an artist specialising in producing drawings, banners and carvings which are used in campaigns for social justice more info

Eric Ogbogbo has been actively involved in campaign for social justice and has written about imperialism –more info

Why do we have job insecurity, poverty wages and brutal benefit sanctions?

Why in a world of incredible technology are working conditions for so many worsening?

*Around one in five of the UK population (20%) were in poverty in 2020/21

*In 2006, 18.1% of workers were subject to precarious employment by 2016, that had risen to 22.2%, an increase of 2 million people

*One in 58 Homeless in London

*1.4 million on zero hours contracts in the UK

*21% paid less than Living Wage in the Uk

*In 2022/23, approximately 384,477 people used a food-banks in London, an increase of 99,790 when compared to the previous year.

*The richest 10% of the global population take home 52% of the total worlds income

*The poorest half of the global population take just 8%. and inequality is growing.

*We are using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to maintain our current way of life and ecosystems cannot keep up with our demands.

We will look at what Marx has to say about what actually creates work and unemployment in capitalism.

Illustrations and demonstrations will be used to explore and introduce Marx’s ideas, which we will engage with together.

It’s up to the majority of people in this world who either have to work or fight for a decreasing amount to live on if unemployed often facing malnutrition, to fight for social justice and end a system based on exploitation while we can.

Marx demonstrates that capitalism is, beyond appearance, a system of exploitation, which results in the increasing degradation of human labour, the destruction of the environment and imperialist war. It is a parasitic system in decay and we are right to resist so come along…

Marx shows it doesn’t have to be this way, another world is possible!

Knowledge and power belong to us all!

Those Whose Souls Resist Repossession, along with several of its sculptural characters—Millie the Scrubbing Brush, Reg the Sink Plunger, Hammer, and Lappie the Teasmade Horse—was exhibited in Poor Things at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, from 4th March, 2023 to 21st May 2023. The exhibition, which included screen stills featuring Thump, emerged from ongoing conversations around art and social class.

As part of the Focus E15 Housing Campaign I have been making work most Saturdays on the street Stall which takes place every Saturday 12-2.00pm Stratford Broadway E15. The work takes the form of poster production, puppet shows and info banners which show social information and graphic representations of the forces of dispossession. The street is turned into a temporary exhibition space in which work is placed on street furniture like phone boxes and pavements.

THE MARX SHOW

FRIDAY 31st MAY19h
Belgin, Rasmus Meyers Allé 3, 5015 Bergen- Norway 
(Andrew Cooper as part of the Capital Drawing Group at the Bergen Assembly)

Come, take part in an easy to understand visual presentation using drawings and puppets. Illustrations and demonstrations will be used to explore and introduce Marx’s ideas in Capital, which we will engage with together and see how they relate to our lives. We will also look at methods of resisisting capitalism from the struggle for housing in London.

For for this workshop in Bergen we will lead up to investigating what Marx says about capitalist crisis, and what its implications are for us both in our daily life and on a world scale.
What is behind the relentless destruction of the environment, degradation of human labour, difficulties  finding affordable places to live and racism? Certainly there are many factors but if it is true that capitalism is inherently unstable  we need to try and understand why and be able to communicate it.
The discussions will inform the production of new drawings which will be used to go into more depth both in the coming bergen Assembly and used as a tool for engagement in struggles against dispossessions.

What can we do -what is arts role? How does something function in the struggle people face? What is working class agency? As part of the event this May I will show examples of art used in housing struggles in London. Focusing on Focus E15 housing campaign who I work with.

Young people add to a banner on the Focus E15 stall Newham London  

For Future Development
The discussion  will be used to inform the Production of two vinyl banners ,one introducing  capitalism and the other looking at its inherent instability, these will uses drawings arranged together to help people picture the social economic forces involved and discuss them.  They will outline why capitalism is unstable and what it leads to which will draw on relevant sections of Marx’s capital , this will form part of the exhibition in September at the Bergen Assembly. The banners will also then be  used on street stalls where people are seeking to build organisation against the attacks and dispossessions foisted on them by political managers of  a crisis ridden system.
This work will also be produced  in dialogue with Focus E15 housing campaign to  ensure that it is something that can function and be useful in street work and we can speak about this in the Bergen Assembly September as it raises issues of co production when art work is made for this use.   
For more info on the ‘Marx Show’ which will be part of this event

You can now see what we did!

Thanks to Melissa Herman for filming  it

read more here https://focuse15.org/2019/02/16/working-class-artists-say-no-to-property-developers/

Sat 2nd February -Carpenters and Dockland Centre,98 Gibbins Road,
Stratford, London E15 2HU. -2.30pm as part of Refurbish and Repopulate the Carpenters Estate

Ron Barret, puppets, masks and initial script—Andrew Cooper

Nelly No-good—Jasmin Stone

Moo-La—Chelsie Greatorex

Mark It and E-Con—Enda De Burca

Cll. Avery Dodgeyman and Mr Do-em-over—Sally Grey 

Altogether!—Daniel Fagbile (with his own army of figurines)

The script has now been added to and developed by the cast. Although the characters may seem fantastical all the elements of the story refer to actual recent events happening to people. The events are real but the characters entirely fictitious.

This performance makes use of the puppets developed mostly from furniture and domestic timber that speaks back for the proper use of housing, as the housing feels slandered because the housing crisis is man made.

Come and see the courageous Nelly Nogood family and friends in their struggle for housing rights against the evil Cll. Avery Dodgeyman and Mr Do-em-over Proper property developer. More info about puppets 

Cast-
Nelly No-good _

MooLa (the Daughter)-

Ron Baret (well meaning but neck pain)

Cllr. Avery Dodgeyman

Arthur

Mr Do-em-over Proper (property enveloper)

Wattaweegonnadoonow (a surprise)