The Royal College of Art MA Writing students have been working with Art on the Underground to create a series of responses to the Brixton Mural Programme (2018 – present).
The Brixton Mural Programme takes the numerous murals that were created in Brixton during the 1980s as an initial point of departure, and invites selected artists to respond to their diverse narratives, the rapid development of the area and the wider social and political history of mural making. The students engaged with these artworks and with Brixton, writing from their distinct and diverse vantage points to produce texts that span poetry, essay and short fiction, and which, like Brixton itself, feature an eclectic cast. Expect uncanny spectres, resurrected poets, deranged bureaucrats, nostalgic commuters, fashionable locals, curious visitors and a cat.
The final outcome consists of 26 texts, recorded as spoken-word and sound pieces, which can be accessed via a QR code found on posters across the London Underground. The students worked with Fraser Muggeridge Studio to design the poster and accompanying leaflet, which is free to pick-up at Brixton station.
Spoken work and sound piece credits:
Isaac Benigson
An imagined radio lecture by John Betjeman as he travels on the Underground to visit the political murals of London.
Mary Bond
A poem.
Produced by Peter Colombo
Lauren Briggs, ‘Randomly Selected’
Listeners are invited to participate in an audio survey, answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to increasingly personal – and surreal – statements.
Hugo Lucian Bou-Assaf
Muraled sequences responding to Geoff Dyer’s 1989 novel ‘The Colour of Memory’.
Original music composition by Lewis Astbury
Carriage the Cat
An audio play skimming slices of lives connected above a Tube stop.
Cowboy Jane, ‘A Ballad for the Fiat 600 Two-Door Fastback Sedan’
Traversing the crème leather interior of the 1967 Fiat 600 Two-Door Fastback Sedan.
Audio Produced in Collaboration with Elliot Dodd
Voice: Rachel Gordon
Emma Clarkson
An immersive journey into the mind of a commuter, the underbelly of claustrophobia and the intrusive thoughts that persist below ground.
Francesca Considine, ‘Uprising’
Use this guided meditation to unshackle you from the constraints of your ‘single story’. Release a seething uprising.
Voice: Courtenay Harewood
Audio sample ‘Uprising’ courtesy of firewire1 on Freesound
Naomi Delorme, ‘Swarm City: The Movement of Collective Body’
On the bodily energy and intimate solitude of city living, and the cityscape as a complex living organism.
Renée Eshel, ‘There is a Garden’
A poem.
Yuna Goda, ‘Ramen, Okame, ぴよぴよ’
A fictional conversation with Brixton station, discussing the different perceptions of ‘Japan’.
Japanese train station audio tracks provided by Yuna Fujita.
Skye Fitzgerald McShane, ‘Out of Time’
A journey to Shanti Panchal’s 1985 mural ‘Across the Barrier’ via the covering and uncovering of histories. Saxophone: Cal Fitzgerald McShane
Hugo Hagger, ‘Leroy. Leroy. A Play.’
A play is performed to an audience in front of a crackling fire by a solo performer. The play is about death, love, revival, and a police officer named Leroy.
Liz Kirk-Channing, ‘Nearly Home’
A semi-improvised, one-take, harp and voice piece. When not every line of the poem is spoken, the harp embodies that which is left unsaid.
Harp: Kirsty Chaplin
Eve Kunna
A cutscene from a true story about two best friends taking a walk on a dark winter morning.
Vava Lotareva, ‘Immigration Station’
The internal monologue of a migrant on the Underground.
Music: ‘Passenger’ by Iggy Pop, performed by Elena Zhitkova.
Maria Mba
Observation and introspection on the Tube.
Zen Mendonça-Collins, ‘The Sounds of the Streets’
A musical exploration of Brixton.
Salomé Mercier, ‘No Surprises’
Fragmented thoughts on when a city becomes a home, and how sometimes all it takes is the familiar noise of the Victoria line.
Julia Merican, ‘Minding the Gaps’
A sonic essay about the unexpected intimacy of sharing public space with strangers.
Nicole Moore, ‘Brixton Revisited’ and ‘Brixton Remembered’
Two second-person vignettes reflecting on time and place, past and present.
Mathilde Von Rosen
Passers-by in Brixton speak about the fashion, community and the formation of identity.
Inez Reeves
Grave goods speak about the historical context of their 4th century, North African owner. A response to ‘Rebirth of a Nation’ (2023), Jem Perucchini’s mural at Brixton station, and the artist’s interest in the Ivory Bangle Lady.
Indra Maria Țincoca
A sonic exploration of how an artwork continues to follow you. Written in response to Jem Perucchini’s ‘Rebirth of a Nation’ (2023) at Brixton station.
Production: Isaac Dossena Cook
Gwyneth Tambe-Green, ‘818 SW9’
An estate agent and a nepo baby meet to discuss a property.
