Rehearsing Municipalism – Getting Local
A conversation with:
04/11/2023
15:00 – 17:00
HJL Dream Space
Resource for London
352 Holloway Road
London
N7 6PA
Description
In this discussion, Farah Elahi, Dee Woods, Scott McAulay, and Larry Botchway rehearse what just and radical municipalism can look like in our current context. In neighbourhoods, community-driven infrastructures can support people to live with dignity, safety and belonging. Often, these infrastructures spring from and are maintained by local and citywide ecologies. This discussion will explore how municipal authorities can be in relationship with local communities as part of equitable local and citywide ecologies.
If you require additional access measures to enable your participation, including BSL interpretation please email info@healingjusticeldn.org. Inline with our commitment to disability justice, we will try to accommodate as much as possible.
Biographies
Farah Elahi is the Head of Community Engagement at the Greater London Authority. Whilst at the GLA, she has led on the Civil Society Strategy and City Hall’s work on supporting a thriving sector. Farah’s previous roles include Research and Policy Analyst at the Runnymede Trust, and the Family and Childcare Trust. Her research has focused on ethnic inequality in London, employment and education. Published reports include a number of local Race Equality Scorecards and policy briefings, Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, and Nations Divided: How to Teach the History of Partition and Ethnic Inequalities in London: Capital for All.
Dee Woods, FRSA is an award winning food system leader. A passionate knowledge broker, ideator, pollinator and weaver who advocates for good food for all and a just food system. Her work meets at the nexus of human rights, food sovereignty, agroecology, community, policy, decolonial research, culture, climate and social justice. Dee co-founded Granville Community Kitchen and the African and Caribbean Heritage Food Network. She sits on the GLA London Food Board, and is a co-editor of A People’s Food Policy. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, Coventry University and member of the Food Ethics Council. She is the co-chair of the Independent Food Aid Network, IFAN and Co Chair of A Growing Culture. She currently represents La Via Campesina as the Western Europe Focal Point on the Coordination Committee of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CSIPM)
Dee is a blessed Mama of many children from the womb and from the soul. She is an initiated Yoruba priest of Osun and an Iyanifa. Her ministry is the medicine of good food, and dance music, especially house and drum n bass. All her work is grounded in care, joy and revolutionary love!
With root in grassroots climate justice activism, Scott McAulay’s practice with the Anthropocene Architecture School fuses architectural, community, and political education with Climate Literacy, Spatial Justice, and the Radical Imagination. Having launched the AAS on its Open Programme in 2019, Scott joined the Architecture Fringe as a Co-Producer in 2021, developing its (R)Evolution! provocation in 2023 and stewarding Radical Spaces and Autonomous Actions – a celebration of Glasgow’s transformative community spaces, their histories, and the prefigurative actions they began in.
Scott has taught widely across Scotland, the British Isles, mainland Europe and Turtle Island, and is one of a constellation of partners co-creating Retrofit Reimagined 2023. Working with Architype, Scott is a Part 2 architectural assistant – specialising in life cycle analysis, natural materials, and sustainability coordination. He is a founding member of ACAN Scotland and an active member of Living Rent – Scotland’s tenants union.”
Larry Botchway is an architect, lecturer and engagement enthusiast with experience in a variety of sectors. Recently being recognised as an RIBAJ Rising Star 2023, he has significant experience in placemaking, designing buildings and developing urban strategies, with particular experience working with public sector clients, across the UK, including Hackney Council, Southwark Council, Lambeth Council, Bexley Council and Basildon Council.
Larry is a co-founder of Power Out of Restriction (POoR) collective, he has been instrumental in platforming marginalised young people and community groups, encouraging them to recognise their design agency and inform their built environment. POoR are the 2023 winners of the London Design Festival Emerging Design medal.
Having worked at We Made That, Haworth Tompkins Architects and Perpendicular Architecture, Botchway has notable experience working with cultural institutions, such as TATE, LW Theatres and London Theatre Company. He has experience working with artists and has collaborated with international research collectives such as Feral Atlas. Larry is on the board of trustees for School SOS, a Nomadic Not-For-Profit Critical Design School that seeks to challenge modes of delivering Higher Education in the UK.
Botchway is also an Associate of the Quality of Life Foundation which is an UK charity committed to improving people’s quality of life by changing the way the housing industry and government acquires, plans, designs builds and manages homes and neighbourhoods.
