With Aysen Dennis, Alessia Gammarota, Julika Gittner, Tom Keene, Loraine Leeson and Claire Louise Staunton.

Consultation (Counter) Cultures is a two-part event series that critically evaluates the failure of public consultations in the context of urban renewal and the role that cultural practitioners can play in its transformation.

This event highlights how artistic and curatorial practices have been deployed to represent residents’ needs and desires in the face of unjust statutory consultations. Each guest has combined their creative practice with their campaigning against developer-led regeneration. They will come together to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of artistic activism to resist and bypass top-down consultation practices that ignore the demands made by local communities.

Aysen Dennis is a resident and campaigner who has been fighting against the demolition of the Aylesbury Estate in London for over 20 years. She has organised numerous campaigns, protest events as well as an exhibition in her flat shortly before her eviction in 2024. With the legal support of Public Interest Law Centre, PILC, she has recently won a high court battle against Southwark Council for its misuse planning law.

Alessia Gammarota is an Italian photographer. With the Fight 4 Aylesbury campaign, she worked collectively with residents and supporters of the Aylesbury Estate on an exhibition in Aysen Dennis’ flat. Alessia created a tapestry of images, posters, and collages that covered most of the flat’s walls; academics contributed with writing; artists and supporters with songs, videos, poems, sound compositions, flower and leaf installations.

Tom Keene is an artist, educator, researcher, programmer, and activist. His artist and activist-led research investigates the role of marginal and often obscure technological objects. He considers how technical objects construct, transform and amplify the social relations of everyday life. A significant focus of his research explored the role of relational databases in the displacement of communities and the demolition of social housing in the UK, particularly at Cressingham Gardens Estate in Southwest London, where he lived from 2006 to 2023. Tom is a founding committee member of the Refurbish Don’t Demolish housing activist group and currently leads the BA in Digital Media, Culture and Technology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Loraine Leeson is a visual artist whose research focuses on the role of art in social and environmental change through bringing community-based knowledge into the public domain. Early work included photo-murals, posters, video and exhibition for the health campaigns and the Docklands Community Poster Project in the1980s. In subsequent decades work with East London communities addressed the impact of change in the urban environment on quality of life and cultural identity

Chaired by Claire Louise Staunton who is a curator, researcher and organiser. As Research Fellow at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art/Teesside University, her expanded research practice addresses the intersection between art, politics and housing. She has held curatorial/directorship positions at MK Gallery, Flat Time House, Inheritance Projects and completed her PhD at the RCA in 2022.