Thursday, 21 June 2012, 6.30pm, Birkbeck, Room B20, Malet Street (Entrance via Torrington Square), London WC1

A cross-disciplinary panel discussion on images and urban change

Organised as part of Open City Docs Fest, ‘Picturing Place’ is an interdisciplinary research project which critically explores the role of images and image-production in processes of urban change.  ‘Images and the London Olympics’ is a panel co-chaired by Ben Campkin (UCL Urban Lab Director) and Rebecca Ross (Urban Lab International Advisory Board member) in collaboration with Hilary Powell  (AHRC Fellow at the Bartlett) and Isaac Marrero-Guillamón (Birkbeck), the editors of The Art of Dissent: Adventures in London’s Olympic State (Marshgate Press, 2012), and CILAVS. Bringing together practitioners from very different fields, this panel discussion will explore the roles that visual languages have in the production of the built environment, and the interactive relationships between images and the city, in the context of the London 2012 Olympics.

This new book, The Art of Dissent, brings together a body of work that has emerged in response to the arrival of the Olympics in East London. Featuring contributions from a range of artists, film makers, photographer and writers including Stephen Gill, Iain Sinclair and Ben Campkin, the book brings together artistic and cultural projects that emerged in response to the London 2012 Olympics and the associated large-scale regeneration of East London. It intervenes in the dominant discourse, language and images surrounding the Games, engaging critically with the changing landscape of the Lower Lea Valley. Land grab, displacement, militarisation, privatisation, sponsorship and branding are explored through essays, photography, film, poetry, fiction and installation art, presenting a unique contribution to the debate around the politics of urban space and regeneration through an interdisciplinary range of work.

The Art of Dissent is now available to buy directly through Central Books.