‘A Bedroom for Everyone’ by Ed Webb-Ingall is a long-term body of work that asks what the role of filmmaking is in response to the current housing crisis in the UK. The project explores the power of grassroots activism and organising in the face of this ongoing emergency.
Installation View, ‘A Bedroom for Everyone’ by Ed Webb-Ingall, Grand Union, 2023. Image by Patrick Dandy, 2023
Following time spent with housing and migrant-support groups from Glasgow, Nottingham, Liverpool, Birmingham and London, filmmaker Ed Webb-Ingall has collaborated with members of these groups to co-write a script for a new animation, illustrated by lead artist Sofia Niazi and animated by Astrid Goldsmith and will be shown at Grand Union from 16 September to 1 December.
Installation View, ‘A Bedroom for Everyone’ by Ed Webb-Ingall (2023) and ‘Home and Dry’ by Leeds Animation Studio (1987), Grand Union, 2023. Image by Patrick Dandy, 2023.
Installation View, ‘A Bedroom for Everyone’ by Ed Webb-Ingall, Grand Union, 2023. Image by Patrick Dandy.
‘A Bedroom for Everyone’ has been in development since 2019 and began as Forming a Resident’s Association, a research group made up of housing activists from Glasgow (Women Asylum Seekers Housing Project), Birmingham (Stirchley Co-operative Development), Liverpool (Granby 4 Streets CLT) and Nottingham (Acorn Renters Union). This came out of a network formed between social justice and grassroots activist organisations in each of the following cities: Birmingham (Grand Union), Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary), Glasgow (LUX Scotland) and Liverpool (Rule of Threes). Coming together monthly to share methods and approaches to building solidarity and resilience in response to housing struggles in each of the cities, each meeting was structured around a different stage of organising: recruitment and involvement; running a meeting and decision-making; organising; actions; sustainability, care and accountability; and reflection. This period of research and gathering culminated in the co-creation of an online resource, listing housing support and activist groups in the UK that could be distributed across the country for those in need.
Above is a list of housing activist groups and campaigns was produced following a series of monthly meetings with housing activists based in Nottingham, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and London. Over the course of six months we would carry out two days of paid research and then meet up online to discuss the various work and actions taking place within and against housing struggles taking place in each of the five cities, with a view to sharing experiences, histories and methodologies. We subsequently invited contributors based in Wales and Northern Ireland to add to the list.
At each meeting we focused on a different stage of what we identified as the steps an activist group goes through; meeting one was about recruitment/involvement, meeting two was about running a meeting and making decisions, meeting three about organising, meeting four was about actions and meeting five was about sustainability/care/accountability at meeting six we reflected on what we might do next and one of the decisions was to produce this shared resource.
Contact us
We see it as something that is very much a work in progress so please email us with any suggestions, updates or amendments.
Email info@grand-union.org.uk