contemporary
Heaven Version 2.8
The brick archways drip, flesh drips. The flicker of glitter. Flashes of red and yellow and blue imprint on the back of my eyes. We drip, drip in neon. Hand-shadows on my face, on my body. Foreign hands on my flesh, familiar hands on my skin. No signal. It’s freedom for a night, freedom from…
Read MoreA Dickensian Necropolis, our ‘new normal’ London
As we entered a new decade, little did we know that three months down the line our bustling thoroughfare would come to be haunted by the shadows of London’s Victorian past. Transforming into a flaneur-like figure in the dead of the night to combat his insomnia, Charles Dickens documented his traversing of London in the…
Read More#MyStrand: Justin Sherin, playwright and screenwriter
I often scour Instagram for gorgeous, strange, or mysterious looking photographs of the Strand, historical and contemporary. @WychStreet, an account run by Justin Sherin, is an account I return to again and again, as the photographs – and generous evocative captions – instantly transport me into the past. Justin was kind enough to share some…
Read MorePeople of the Strand: Alice and Kimberley at Two Temple Place
Like many people, I have been enjoying the virtual offerings of museums and galleries during lockdown. For this post, I’m grateful to Two Temple Place for letting Strandlines share excerpts from their blog ‘Voices from Two Temple Place’. I can’t recommend the blog enough, and applaud the blog’s mission to be an ‘inclusive online platform…
Read MoreBlack Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter. Monday 25th May 2020 marked another instance of police brutality against a member of the Black community in the United States. George Floyd, a Black 46-year-old father, son, and brother, was murdered by white police officer, Derek Chauvin, in broad daylight – a disproportionate reaction to Floyd supposedly passing a counterfeit $20…
Read MoreCelebrating Volunteers’ Week 2020
Strandlines couldn’t exist without the generous contributions of a fabulous group of volunteer researchers and creative writers. 1-7 June is Volunteers Week in the UK: a chance for organisations across the country to celebrate the amazing contributions that people make in their spare time around so many other committments. By way of a thank you…
Read MoreBlack Lives Matter protest, Trafalgar Square 31 May 2020
Black Lives Matter. Below, we’ve archived a selection of photographed geotagged at Trafalgar Square on 31 May 2020. The protests in May and June 2020 were a response to the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. But, as organisers and participants write in their photo captions and in television interviews, the reality is…
Read MoreLife and Work on the Tower RNLI Lifeboat Pier
Anyone who has crossed the Waterloo bridge might have noticed the Royal National Lifeboat Institution Pier, on the north side of the Thames. This is the busiest lifeboat station in the United-Kingdom. I spoke to Stan Todd, a full-time helmsman on the station, and looked over archive materials, to find out more about how the…
Read MoreDan Kirmatzis: Strand series
The Strandlines team periodically check in on photos tagged to the Strand (and surrounding areas) on Instagram and Twitter. We came across Dan Kirmatzis’s work on Instagram. A huge thanks to Dan for so generously sharing his photographs and insights into his inspiration and processes. “Although I take many photos in the street genre…
Read MoreSnapshots from lockdown
Lockdown in London was announced on 23rd March 2020, but many folks had been social distancing for a week or more before. It’s been heartening to see that the – very few – photos that are being posted on social media with the Strand tagged as the location are showing this main artery emptied of…
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