We have been invited to exhibit at the recently revamped New Glasgow Society gallery in February – March 2012, to coincide with the demolition of the first two slab blocks in the same month. The show Red Road Underground will show previously unseen material concerned primarily (but not exclusively) with the underground leisure complexes built at Red Road. This included a massive bingo hall and a nautically themed bar called The Brig. Both of these sites have been closed since the 1990′s. In early 2011 they were briefly re-opened to allow inspection by the demolition company. We tagged along and found something not unlike a latter-day Pompeii where time suddenly came to a stop. The exhibition will run for four weeks and will coincide with the launch of a specially designed website, which can be viewed here – http://www.redroadunderground.co.uk/ EXHIBITION EVENTS:
Thursday 2nd February, 7-10pm
Red Road Underground: Private View (For Exhibition funders only)
In conjunction with The Drouth. Free refreshments and entertainment to mark the beginning of the Red Road Underground Exhibition.

Short documentary film using photography, audio and timelapse photography on the demolition of two high rise flats in Scostoun, Glasgow from Summer to Winter last year. I was commissioned by the demolition company to shoot a make shift timelapse of both buildings coming down by a large grinding machine, which slowly tears down the buildings over 4 months. And whilst shooting this I found I had a free run of the empty flats. I then tracked down 3 former residents of the flats to hear their stories about life in the flats, the good days, the experience moving in and the eventual demise of the flats. Everyone wanted these buildings demolished and the press claimed in their latter days they were rife with drug addicts and crime. A local petition was sent round demanding the flats be demolished and then the flats were finally emptied. All around though are high rise flats that seemed to have survived and even prospered, so what caused 55 & 75 Plean St to be so run down, filled with criminality and then demolished?

This short film is part of my new project – The Glasgow Renaissance, a continuation of my MA project – Hope, memories, loss & community  ]]> http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/55-75-plean-st-high-rise-demolition/feed/ 0 http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/document-9-screening-and-exhibition/ http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/document-9-screening-and-exhibition/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:23:37 +0000 ChrisLeslie http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/?p=280 Hope, memories, loss & community : Dalmarnock (Margaret Jaconelli) from chris leslie on Vimeo.

In October 2011 I have some screenings and an exhibition of my Glasgow work as part of the Document 9 Human Rights Film Festival in Glasgow.

I will be screening my short film on Margaret Jaconelli and her fight against eviction from Dalmarnock as part of an afternoon of discussion and debate as to what exactly the Commonwealth Games Legacy will be for the citizens of the East End of Glasgow. This will take place on Friday 21st October 2.30 – 4.30 in the CCA. An exhibition of photography from my previous and current Glasgow documentation project will be held at the Old Hairdressers, Renfield Lane, (accross from Stereo) in Glasgow from the 17th to the 23rd October – opening hours 12 noon – 12 pm.

Document is the only dedicated international human rights documentary film festival in Scotland. Held annually in October, we’re a grassroots initiative that aims to use film as an advocacy tool to raise the profile and promote debate of human rights & social issues across the globe. Document has built its reputation by screening films which critically engage with the world we live in at the start of the 21st century; stories at once personal and universal in significance, by emerging and established filmmakers from every country and culture. You can download a festival programme here >

The festival provides a unique platform that attracts Scottish, UK and international documentary filmmakers and promotes local and international discussion, cultural exchange and education. We screen a large and diverse selection of human rights films that are rarely shown in the UK to offer a broader understanding of issues often ignored by the mainstream media.

I was commissioned by National Theatre of Scotland to complete a travelling exhibition and a short film documenting the Gorbals and Glasgow in transition. The film and exhibition will be shown alongside the play Men Should Weep that will open at the Citizens Theatre in September to October and then will travel with the play as it tours Scotland. The play is set in 1930′s Gorbals and is a moving and funny portrayal of impoverished 1930s Glasgow, a raw salute to the human spirit. The play by Ena Lamont Stewart was voted one of the top hundred plays of the last century in the NT millennium poll.

I was commissioned to produce a short documentary on life in the Gorbals today and I managed to track down an old lady Rose White, who was 89 years old and had lived through the very timeframe I was documenting. In the end, she got the starring role. But it was a tight schedule, 2.5 weeks for what should have been a 3 month project but it was a great challenge to research, stalk the streets of the Gorbals, print a selection of work and shoot, record interviews and edit to complete a short 7 minute film. I can only dream of what would have possible if I had more time, but you can view the film below. To see the exhibition and the play you can buy your tickets here. ]]> http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/gorbals-exhibition-and-multimedia-project/feed/ 2 http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/return-from-sarajevo/ http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/return-from-sarajevo/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:58:31 +0000 ChrisLeslie http://www.chrisleslie.co.uk/?p=306

Sarajevo 2011

15 years after I first ventured into the city and on the surface it has changed beyond all comprehension. In the city centre you have to look hard to find war damage or sign of war. The Sarajevo Roses – memorial shell craters painted red, marking where someone was killed have all but dried up. Tourists are on the increase, and not just the adventurous and unwashed backpackers, but bus loads of Germans, Americans and Japanese who stroll though the old town eating ice cream and buying ornaments made from artillery cases.

McDonald’s opened to a fanfare and presidential ribbon cutting in July of 2011 – a key turning point for any transitional country seeking the wealth and acceptance of the Western World by being awarded its very own golden arc. For others it was simply crap fast food and crass Americanization. But McDonalds was somewhat dwarfed by the many new shopping centres that dot the city centre and suburbs. Free wifi and packed with cafes they try to tempt Sarajevans, young and old into spending what little earnings they have.

The past 4 years since I was last in the city has seen the most dramatic physical changes to the landscape, but as with all cities, you dig a bit deeper under the surface and all is not that it seems. For many of my friends in their early thirties, those who played through and survived the siege – they have employment, but getting an actual contract is hard and is usually paid for.

Corruption is everywhere on the political levels. And mistrust between all ethnic groups is endemic. The politicians won’t work together and neither do the citizens. The former frontline in Sarajevo between the Republika Srbska and the Muslim / Croat Federation, scenes of the worst fighting in the city, is now just an grassy intersection between a road and rows of housing but the tensions and mistrust remain.

A new generation has grown up in the city. Teenagers and young adults who have no comprehension what their peers went through to defend the city. They have no idea what it was like to live 4 years under siege and bombardment. They are living in a euro centric Sarajevo were their conflicts are with fashion, girlfriends and boyfriends, and everyday teenage angst. And who would deny them this?

One of my friends – Edina, who took part in the photo project I taught back in 1996 – 2000, points out that its wrong that this next generation has to ‘carry the baggage and trauma’ of a siege and war that they never lived through. That is not to say that they forget about the war, but Sarajevo’s people can’t live in the past and EU membership end game seems the only way forward, whether they agree with it or not. I hope to return to Sarajevo in the next few months to continue this documentation.

May 2012 marks the 20-year anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo. A siege and war that lasted 1325 days, the longest siege in the modern history of mankind. When I first arrived in Sarajevo in 1996 the destruction was spectacular to behold. Destruction was everywhere, there was still a curfew in place and after 9 pm the city shut down. On subsequent return visits Sarajevo started to rebuild, shops began to open, buildings were repaired and even U2 played a sell out stadium gig.

I have a few ideas for documentary projects and this trip will be a recce as I haven’t been since 2007 and I hear the city has changed somewhat, I also have a lot of good friends to catch up with. One idea is to follow up some of the students who I taught photography to in 1996. One of these students, and good friend, Oggi Tomic left the city in 2007 for the UK, got a degree at film school and is now married and living in Cambridge. He has no plans to return to Sarajevo but his belonging to the city is still strong. (I hope to get him out to the city on the next trip to help me film if this project works out)

Another student, Edina remains in the city and is working for the Bosnian Government in International Relations, as Bosnia grapples with the EU membership end game. Two young people who both have chosen different paths, one who wants to stay and build a future in Sarajevo and an another who had to leave in order to build his future.

There is now a new generation of teenagers who have never experienced any conflict or siege that was so endemic for all citizens of Sarajevo who lived and survived 1992 – 1995. But for most people, the pain never leaves, they just learn to cope. Nana, an old lady I used to stay with who lost both her husband and son by mortar shell and sniper. She has never been able to leave the war behind, sometimes it’s as if she’s never left that time in the 1990s, she cries and prays every day, fearing that war could return at any time.

So what interest does Bosnia hold today? If the war ended in 1995 with a peace agreement surely it’s all just in the past and for historians to comment? Here we are in 2011 and Bosnia certainly seems like old news these days – what with English riots, Phone Hacking, Pop star overdoses (suspected..) and the Arab Spring that has been with us since late January and not to mention the fact that we are at war with Libya (are we still at war?) Even Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer sexy, a 24 hour saturated media and politicians have made sure we get bored of war and disasters fairly quickly.

But I want to find out what life is really like for Sarajevans, 20 years after the siege began. How do you quantify peace? It’s not just a war that lasted from 1992 – 1995, it’s a war that still affects people and the consequences are widespread. Thousands of people trawl through the remains of mass graves for their loved ones in areas around Srebrenica. In Sarajevo and other cities and towns family breakdown, alcoholism, unemployment cause their own wars and children are on the frontline once again, and many are being placed into state orphanages.

I remember interviewing one refugee woman who was ethnically cleansed from her home with her family and fled to Sarajevo. Three years after the war had ended she was on the run again from a violent and abusive husband, who after fighting on the frontline came home to a ruined economy and turned to drink to see the days through. I remember her telling me, with tears flowing ’This is not the peace we had wished for’…. This idea of family breakdown is another idea I may follow up on as a documentary project.

So it seems there will be a lot to document in a city that was recently voted the 93rd most interesting city to visit by Time Magazine, but is still struggling to overcome the siege and war of the 1990’s. I will write again when I get to Sarajevo, it’s a short trip but going to make it as productive as possible….

I was sent some old photographs from a fellow photographer from Chicago – Pete Pawinski, who I worked with as a volunteer in Croatia way back in the Autumn and Winter of 1996. We were working on a social reconstruction project ran by a German hippy commune that had been working in the town of Pakrac since and during the war. The project was on its last legs (its disintegrated late 1996) as the money had dried up and Croatia was of secondary importance as all the aid and interest was now flooding into Bosnia.

Pakrac and all the surrounding towns were heavily destroyed, heavily mined and desolate. It was a hard place to live in, and as a ‘young’ 22 year old trying to ‘make a difference’ it was a total head f**k at times. But from Pakrac I then moved to Sarajevo and from Sarajevo I guess it kind of led me to my chosen path today. It was great to look back at the old photos of me cycling round the destroyed landscape, and with more years and experiences behind me it was much easier to look back without that isolation feeling.

On the same day I was sent the photos from Pete, it was announced that Ratko Mladic was finally arrested after 16 years ‘on the run’. Many of my friends in Sarajevo emailed me and were jubilant but sad that it had taken so long to capture him and the arrest brought back all the memories of a city under siege (not that the memories ever really leave). So with all things Balkan going on I have put together a short 3 minute slideshow using Pete’s image as the cover and some of my old archive BW photographs that have been gathering digital dust in my harddrive. Refreshing to see the old negative marks and scratches again, its been a long time…..

My first time documenting Romania was 10 years ago in April 2001 visiting large state run institutions for children in Maramures County, in the north of the country. The institutions I visited were the home for thousands of children. One place – Camin Spital institution was home to children with severe special needs and disabilities and was crammed with kids rammed in steel cots, some of them tied and bound to prevent harm to themselves and others.

With staffing levels at a minimum and no specialist physiotherapy or other care, the children spent their days rocking back and forward and moaning. Some of them had never been outside. This was the first time I actually started documenting with a video camera as to me the sounds and movement of the children were so much part of the horror that a stills camera just couldn’t capture.

10 years on and much has changed in Romania – the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, and the reforms in the 2000s and its recent entry to the European Union have led to an improved economic outlook. Until 2009, Romanian economic growth was among the fastest in Europe (officially 8.4% in 2008 and more than three times the EU average) until the global financial crash. But still the number of children entering state institutions due to poverty and family breakdown gets higher and there is a still a prevailing thought amongst some that the state will take better care of your child than you can.

One of the Romanian Governments conditions of entry into the EU was to sort out its childcare practises and there is a will and need to do this. Many of the institutions I documented first time round, like the Camin Spital are now closed and the children in smaller family based homes. There are many great local and international NGO’s working from a local to national level to support families from abandoning children, to arranging foster care, to closing down state institutions and moving the children into small family based units. It’s basically like starting a comprehensive social care system for scratch, which is a huge and daunting task. 10 years on though and the number of professional Romanian child care specialists and social workers has grown into a small army, which against the odds is making huge progress on a problem that has plagued Romania for decades.

For more information on the organisations helping Romania visit http://hhc.ro/en/

This morning, after a eight year long battle with Glasgow City Council, Margaret Jaconelli and her family were finally evicted from their home in an early morning dawn raid by over 120 policeman (I gave up counting at 85). I was there at 4.45am and already the whole area had been cordened off by the police – it must have been their easiest eviction they thought as there were no neighbours or others to consider. But it took them over 2.5 hours to finally enter the property and Jack and Margaret then left, heads held high to cheers from their family and supporters. It was a high adrenalin packed morning but by 8am it was all over the family were evicted. The end of story? Not according to Margaret, who will continue to fight Glasgow City Council via the European Court of Human Rights and her plan to stand as an MSP candidate….it seems her struggle for justice will continue, but her home and campaign headquarters will soon be demolished…

I will be screening a short film on Margaret and hopefully she will appear in person on Tuesday April 5th at Platform to discuss her story.