Misplaced women?... Misplaced nature?

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An intervention I did at Westfield Stratford shopping mall (2016) during Tanja Ostojić's Misplaced Women? workshop, in partnership with Elena Marchevska and LADA. I unpacked my bag at the base of a fake tree, took out my birds whistles and played them, one by one. 

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Call and response: it’s a game we play everyday, trying to communicate with each other, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Being in a foreign country, speaking a different language, trying to connect with people around us – this is something we have all experienced at some point in our lives. When communication fails, it’s easy to feel misplaced, isolated, lonely. 

 

And then there’s nature. The area of Stratford and its surroundings – where we have toured with Tanja Ostojic and the workshop participants – that has undergone a process of complete gentrification in recent years, mostly as a result of the Olympic Games held there in 2012. The enormous shopping centre, next to the Olympic Stadium with its artificial environment, was built there for this reason. Where is the nature that once belonged there? Where are its inhabitants? Gentrification misplaces people, and nature too.

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Misplaced Women? project website

Photos: Tanja Ostojic