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Housing Pains (12A*)

Artists in Residence

,Cinema 2
A dog crosses the marshes.

How do artists live? Here, four films explore liveability and livelihoods across four decades. 

These films explore the multifarious means in which artists carve out a life for themselves in London, looking back to the 1950s all the way to the present day.

Artists Must Live is an early postwar record of the Arts Council mulling over the challenges of an artistic career in the 1950s; John Smith’s 1978 commission for Thames TV meets the residents of a new tower block in Hackney Marshes; the BBC Community Programme Unit profile the group of artists as they struggle to save their homes against rising property prices; and Emily Richardson returns to high-rise living after the millennium, encountering the everyday incidences of a tower block over several months in 2005.   

Tagged with: Cinema Artists in Residence

Total Runtime: 103 minutes

Programme

Artists Must Live

1953, John Read, Arts Council, 29 minutes 

A survey of what it meant to live and work as an artist in 1950, covering a wide range of practitioners, the film provides a multitude of ways artists found to remain sustainable whilst developing their practice.

 

Hackney Marshes

1978, John Smith, Thames TV, 32 minutes

John Smith's ground breaking film challenges traditional TV documentary norms by focusing on Hackney's tower block residents and film-making conventions. Through interviews and unique compositions, including repetition and unexpected visuals like chalk lines and closing lift doors, the film disrupts viewer expectations, prompting a re-evaluation of their engagement.

Artists In Residence

BBC Community Programme Unit, 1988, 30 mins

'If you want a comfortable, secure life, being an artist has to be one of the worst ways of going about it’, so says artist Philip Stanley in this documentary focusing on the Beck Road collective, as the street which they rescued from dereliction is to be sold.

 

Block

Emily Richardson, 2005, 12 mins

Block is a round-the-clock portrait, shot over a duration of ten months, of a 1960s tower block in south east London.

Cinema 2

Location
Barbican Cinema 2 & 3 are located on Beech Street, a short walk from the Barbican’s Silk Street entrance. From Silk Street, you’ll see a zebra crossing that will take you across the road to the venue. 

Address
Beech Street
London
EC2Y 8DS

Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.