Written by Audrey Robeson, MSc Urban Studies student, UCL Geography

With a room full to bursting, the launch of Urban Geopolitics: Rethinking Planning in Contested Cities, edited by Jonathan Rokem (UCL Geography) and Camillo Boano (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL / Urban Lab), was clearly highly relevant to those studying, thinking, and researching contemporary urban studies. People lined up against the back wall, willing to put up with the lack of seating for a chance to hear some of the contributors give a brief presentation of their chapters. Afterwards, three guests were invited to give responses and their comments on the book.

Image credit: Evelyn Teh

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 Written by Laura Marshall, UCL Urban Laboratory Research Assistant and UCL Geography PhD student

Since May 2016, the UCL Urban Laboratory has been researching nightlife spaces in London significant to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and Intersex communities since 1986. Led by the centre’s Director Ben Campkin (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture) and PhD student Laura Marshall, the research has been prompted by the wide reporting and activism around the closure of commercial LGBTQI spaces, with a number of high-profile cases in the media, along with the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London, who has renewed discussions of policy change to support culture, social integration and the night-time economy.

Following the success of Night Scenes – an Urban Lab-hosted workshop in July – we took the project to the first-ever Peckham Festival on 10 September, as part of the CAMP-er-VAN.

Tia Simon-Campbell and Olivia Mastin from Bbz speaking at Night Scenes @ CAMP-er-VAN © UCL Urban Laboratory]

The CAMP-er-VAN is the creation of designer, filmmaker and UCL Bartlett BSc Architecture graduate Samuel Douek.

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Written by Freya Rudd, work experience student, UCL Communications and Marketing

Can you have imagination where there is also control? Is freedom possible where there is security? These questions are explored in photographer Max Colson’s new exhibition, ‘Virtual Control: Security and the Urban Imagination’, currently on display at the Practice Space of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Colson’s first solo exhibition at RIBA, presented and sponsored by UCL Urban Laboratory, showcases how public spaces seem to be guiding people toward social freedom and comfort; however, they are owned by commercial entities, with everyone venturing into these areas constantly being observed by security cameras, surrounding them at all times, watching.

Colson graduated from UCL in 2007 with a BA in English Literature, and from London College of Communication in 2012 with an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Since then, his work, mainly consisting of collaborations, has been exhibited at Brighton Photo Fringe, C/O Berlin and the UCL Slade Research Centre, just to name a few.

His involvement in the works Hide and Seek: The Hidden Nature of Plant Life in High Security Spaces and Neighbourhood Watch have been printed in Hotshoe and Darwin Photography magazines. In 2013, he won the title of UK winner in the Flash Forward Emerging Photographer competition. These achievements caught the attention of the Leverhulme Trust, who offered him a grant in 2014. So far, I’d say he’s doing pretty well.

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Written by Jasmine Popper (MA student, UCL Anthropology)

Shown in the appropriate setting of the expansive Slade Research Centre, the eighth edition of Cities Methodologies questioned how we design, navigate and imagine cities as places. The exhibition and event series, organised by the UCL Urban Laboratory, represented an overall sense of investigation into what constitutes the lived experience, and the social and political construction of urban environments.

After a call for proposals, a number of artists, academics, researchers and students from across the world working on urban topics showcased their research at UCL. Of these, a number of contributors unraveled day-to-day urban narratives and political issues as lived at a ground level.

As soon as I entered the fifth floor (where the exhibition took place), I was transported back outside by an atmospheric soundscape of road sweeping and birdsong. It was part of Cally Calls, a project in which seven artists collaborated with seven local inhabitants of the Caledonian Road area in north London.

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