one giant arm

Sydney Cunningham is a young photographer from London, she is currently in her final year of study at Bristol, UWE. We featured her work on OGA last February, and we’re pleased to see her newt project titled ‘Grow Heathrow’. When describing this work Sydney explains:

‘For almost a decade now, an area on the fringes of West London has had the threat of extinction hanging over it. The village of Sipson has unfortunately been earmarked as the site for Heathrow airport’s proposed third runway. Despite being in existence for almost 900 hundred years, its future still remains in doubt. Yet many refuse to accept the decision and have come together to fight the Governments proposed plans for Heathrow’s expansion. One of the more cohesive groups to engage in the opposition initiated a project established around three years ago; it has risen almost Phoenix-like from the flames, or rather from thirty tonnes of rubbish, on a spot of derelict land and has become known as ‘Grow Heathrow’. The aim is to purchase the land under a Community Land Trust, thus enabling it to stay in the hands of the local community.

 Within close proximity of one of the Worlds busiest airports seems an unlikely place to find a thriving community of like-minded yet total individualists. However, they have transformed, through hard work and much innovation, a forgotten piece of land into a thriving Community garden, holding workshops for the local community and setting a valued example of sustainable living beneath one of Britain’s most active flight paths. As a Photographer who is interested in the way people and communities find differing ways of living together, I have spent numerous months documenting the lives of those who have committed themselves to reinvigorating a blighted community which has become used to the threat of extinction hanging over them like a Hangman’s noose.

 The unrestrained advancement of the modern world is unrelenting, and it appears that long established communities are only cannon fodder for the profit driven Multi Nationals who it seems are gaining more and more control over our lives. Yet the voices in the wilderness refuse to go away and the Grow Heathrow activists, who are members of the Transition Heathrow organisation, refuse to accept what many think is the inevitable.

 The resourcefulness of the people involved is limitless. Despite the challenges, they have built a home from existing structures, and also with incredible ingenuity their own shelters, which express the individuality of the people involved. A unified core of thirty or so people are involved in the project, with around 15 living permanently on the site providing their own food and power, thus setting an example of a future without total reliance on fossilised fuels. A common sense of purpose prevails amongst the group who have so far garnered the support of local inhabitants by investing their time and knowledge into the campaign to save the village. The influence of the project is not to be underestimated as they have raised the spirits of the beleaguered villagers, who have been living in a physical and emotional no man’s land for many years now. The future remains precarious for Sipson, but the fight will go on, and the example set by Grow Heathrow will have a positive influence on many of us who have come to the conclusion that the unrestricted progress proffered by the current system is unsustainable.’

To see a further preview of Sydney Cunningham’s ‘Grow Heathrow’ project Read more…