Happy New Year!

I was cutting my hair with some clippers on New Years Eve - and noticed an article in the copy of the Guardian my hair clippings were being collected on. It was an article on a project by Iain Sinclair/Stephen Gill.

Iain Sinclair - walker, writer and psychogeographer. I'd received a copy of Sinclair's 'City of Disappearances' for Christmas. A collection of writing about loss in London. I'd read Sinclair's 'London Oribital' - which I'd really liked. Some of it traced walks through the Lea Valley - I've lived on the edge of that area for a while - first Walthamstow then Leyton and now Hackney. It's a weird location. An area where country gets roughed up by the urban sprawl of East London.

There's a video - 'London Orbital' by Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit. I've not seen it. I didn't know it existed until this week. But Chris Petit I had come across.

Chris Petit is director of 'Radio On' - another movie not watched but I've wanted to see for a while. An English road movie with Wim Wender's as co-producer. You can see the trailer here. Petit is also author. Noir London thriller 'Robinson' sounds good.

So returning to the clippings and the paper - Stephen Gill is a photographer. I know nothing. Debbie my girlfriend had to fill in some blanks. He's been doing various things but some of these things include documenting bits of Hackney.

Gill and Sinclair plan to document some of the area currently undergoing 'regeneration' as part of the Olympic development. Large parts of the Lea Valley have been fenced off and penned in as the builders and bulldozers go to work. They're taking to boat and using the Lea itself as a means to traverse the barricades.

BBC DNA Collective : Iain Sinclair Video Interviews
Iain Sinclair - Londonist Interview
Chris Petit Interview
Stephen Gill's Website