Chicken shops and the great outdoors
There are stories at work in this illustration, 'Chicken Shop Boys.'
I recently learned that one of the green spaces I'm fortunate enough to live near in Salisbury is only still intact because people used to be executed on it. Something to do with religion and burial grounds.
Is this really what it takes in 2022 to preserve free outdoor public space? Even now, with stark warnings about an unthinkable future for not just our children, but us, here and now - not the faraway post-mortem nightmare we'd hoped we'd miss. Desperate councils sell it all off for car parks, apartments, and commercial developments.
I've been writing at length, as part of my upcoming 'The Creative Condition' book about the critical role of playing out in the understanding of the true self and the development of soft skills. Soft skills that enable us to adapt, understand, get along, teamwork, innovate and think differently.
Bedrocks of creativity.
These days, where can any young person from a low-income family go and hang out without charge away from the watchful eyes of adults?
Chicken. Coffee. Vapes. Coca-Cola. Sweets. Even these basic vices all require spends.
Manchester council just signed off on ripping down trees and tearing up the earth on Hough End Fields to build new leisure centres. Will these businesses welcome in the kids who hang out here, for free gym, swim, and 5-a-side football sessions?
McDonald’s, in a typically ruthless company move, just butchered 11 mature trees outside a west London restaurant and replaced them with plastic grass.
You get the idea.
Nothing is changing.
It's getting worse. Yet the cries of dismay, and the sharp intakes of breath can be heard far and wide when more gang violence erupts.
As more flowers are laid, as more land is cleared, the media all ask 'why?' and I bite my tongue because however obvious it seems to me, partly influenced by all of the above, it is still heartbreaking to see the horrors that come when humans reach such low points.
All of these things played out in my mind in a white-noise hiss as I documented the chicken shop boys, in pen and ink, as I watched them and thought about how easily we deride and dismiss the young people who represent a critical generation for all of our futures.
For flickering flames in the dark, take the time to read up on:
Bikestorms
Young Urban Arts Foundation
Dance United
among many others.
I have a fantastic chat with a worker at a children's secure unit coming up on The Creative Condition Podcast. Subscribe at:
https://lnkd.in/efd-yBfw