Guide to Risk in Camberwell
by Camberwell Youth and Lottie Child

Some risks are dangerous, others expand your mind –In this guide we ask you to judge for yourself the risks we suggest. Let us lead you through Camberwell, South London as we see it this summer 2006.


This is a geocache trail, you need a handheld gps system and some cunning to find the locations we list. At each location we want you to look for something, consider taking a risk and/or answer a question. In some places we have hidden small black plastic ‘sound pads’, these low-tech devices play back 10 seconds of sound DO NOT REMOVE THEM, to listen press the yellow button.


Guide to Risk in Camberwell
part one by the JRM
Heart
N51° 28.591’W000 05°.425’
We hope you find this place in a heart beat.
Look for: the hidden sound pad
Risk: keep your purse close
Question 1: Which fund*mentally hip boy band started right here?
Question 2: how many round blue and white raised circles are there?

Answer 1

Answer 2

My eyes is on bicycle
N51°28.640 W000°05618
Risk: Go inside and ask how much it is to hire a bike

Answer



Animal kingdom
N51° 28.794’W00005.6700
Look for: a black sound pad hidden near by
Question: This is a centre for what in Camberwell?
Risk: cross the road next to the castle pub (called the castle even though its not in elephant and castle) and jump over all the bollards.

Answer



Walk past Griller chicken shop, or if you’re hungry go inside and order a classic chicken burger, the people are nice and its good food.

Cambridge
N51°28.847’W000° 05.645
A very special place
Look for: The dovecot, then look for a sound pad hidden behind a grill
Question: What year did this place begin life?

Answer


Nature
N51°28.797’W000° 05.541’
Look for: The big black gates.
Risk: go and sit on the grass on the left side, relax and enjoy the movement of the trees , smell the grass and listen to the sounds.
Question: what sounds can you hear?

Answer

Bed
N51°288.473’ W000° 05.456
Question: Is this a good place to sleep? What do people do here?
Risk: Lie down and have a rest.

Answer

Green
N51°28.947’W000°05.456’
The final cache is a small container hidden in the green
Look for: birds nest but don’t touch.

When you find the container write your nickname and the time you found it in the logbook put it back and head back with your answers to win a prize.

Guide to Risk in Camberwell
Part two by the Looook crew


Some risks are dangerous, others expand your mind –In this guide we ask you to judge for yourself if the risks we suggest are worth taking let us lead you through Camberwell as we see it this summer 2006.



For this trail you need to take a football with you. At each location we want you to look for something, consider taking a risk and answer a question, write down the answers and bring them back to see if you win a prize. In some places we have hidden small black plastic ‘sound pads’, these low-tech devices play back 10 seconds of sound DO NOT REMOVE THEM, to listen press the yellow button.

Activities to do along the way:
If you see a nice car take a picture of it with your camera phone and look out for sexy girls/guys.


Feel it
N51° 28 913 W000° 05.500’
Risk: Try to get up here tree times
Question: how many people look at you funny?


Answer

Run and jump
At the corner of Bethwin and Camberwell roads hop over the fence by the petrol station then cross the road, jumping over the cycle lane and make your way down the left side of Bethwin road weaving in and out of the bollards.
Risk: Take your shoe off and chuck it over the railway bridge - run and catch it on the other side.

Smile
N51°28.829 W000° 05. 774
Risk: Go into the adventure playground and introduce yourself, say hello to some one, if they don’t respond just smile and go on your way.
Question: To the left of the entrance there is a sign. What does the graffiti to the left of the sign, on the yellow part say? (Above the big letter N)

Answer

On your way to the next waypoint
Risk*: Knock on someone’s door and run away (*not worth taking)

Goal
N51°28 844 W000° 05774
When you get to the next waypoint you’ll need the football
Risk: try to score 3 goals
Question: how many diamond shaped holes are there in the walls surrounding the pitch?
Find: the hidden sound pad


Answer

Elephant
N51°28 812 W000° 05 907
Turn left at the blue elephant
Question: how many flags can you see? What countries are they from?

Answer

Tower blocks
N51°28 749 W000° 05 879
Question: count how many tower blocks there are
Look for: Concrete slope.
Risk: run up and along it so you’re skating without a skateboard.

Answer


Cache
N51°28719 W000 05 857
Look for: a small white container in a smelly corner.
Risk: do keepy uppy with the container then write your name and the time you found it in the log book, put it back.

For the event Young Camberwell residents awarded participants with diamond stickers to bling up their mobile phones with.

Written comments from participants:

That was so much fun! I noticed how aware I became of my surroundings and conscious of where I walked. My favourite moment was sitting on the grass and second favourite finding the bed section.
I found a dead dog. It was gross and sad. And a major step up in terms of risk. I particularly enjoyed the sunshine. (Alex Bowen)

Really good fun! Enjoyed climbing the tree and experiencing some real risk on the way! (Sarah Cartwright)

It was great to have a reason for going somewhere new and local and looking at other things – surprisingly nervous at first but fun to do the challenges in a group. (Eleanor Margolies)

Great to explore the local environment, being made aware of interesting places/sights/experiences around you. good fun, takes you back to being a child taking risks and behaving in a way that may seem less acceptable for three grown women, fun to put yourself back in that position, see things through different eyes. (Amy )

That was a really exciting, different idea and experience. Please do it again. (Ylva Dahlin)

Very good idea and very good to know more about Camberwell. (Joel)


Freedom of movement and anti social behaviour need to be worked in esp. freedom as Eyram could be involved what are his dates?

This summer a series of urban explorations will be penetrating Camberwell’s
deepest recesses, investigating what is hidden in plain sight when we move in our robotic semi blindness. Stop to notice and engage things that people have noticed so far
secret gardens – the way that most bushes in the city are hollow inside providing space for activities too private or subtle to exist in the glare of the streets.
A rope swing in the garden of an estate
Children’s graffiti



We might listen to the sound of cars passing in the night
Find fallen fruit
Frottage


That a common desire might be focused in the enactment of a sex magic ritual (or is this lanuguage used to describe the event afterwards?)

Edible plants with a mould on them that creates hallucination

That we all notice different things inviting people with wildly different life experiences and views of the place to contribute to the exploration documentation of which will then become a guided tour and booklet.
Maybe have a sign in facility in some places like the secret garden

Mail out
Meet people
Make a date for collective expl.
Compile
Print deadline?

training for how to behave in the streets
what I’m interested in is the ways we behave and move through the city streets. I’m constantly playing with the ways I move the routes I take and the things I do as ways to engage with my surroundings and the people I encounter in the streets and on public transport. I notice that each place has different cultures at different times. Responsiveness both emotionally, physically, verbally, musically, socially.
Crossing boundaries between people
The idea of changing cultures – on the tube last week
Despite these actions being fleeting the effect they have on the individual is accumulative and confidence building. Developing these skills as part of a group is a way to develop collective meanings around the location being explored and/or inhabited and the activities/ways of being that we develop together as improvised interventions with a basis in walking, exploring and climbing but including pissing graffiti, simulated and actual sex acts, making fires, making shelters, trespassing hugging and kissing, sharring food, hiding and finding food and other things.( ref junkies shouts to each other on the streets and hiding things for each other) (children pippi longstocking hiding ginger beer in a tree)
The skills/the art of being on the street. Capoeira was created in brazil by enslaved people it is a martial art that combines dance music and philosophy it eevolved on the streets with people forming a circle in which to play the game, being a capoeirista involves developing cunning a great deal has been written by Capoeira masters about being “street smart” knowing the kinds of signals one gives off with ones body language and the way one uses one’s eyes.
Gathering diverse people together with a shared purpose of exploring and intervening in a location.

The group will contain specially invited people who have insights into some aspect(s) of these areas (see list below)

Artist Lottie Child devises urban explorations in order to collectively produce guides for active engagement with urban places. She invites specific people to share their expertise and subjective responses to the notions of freedom of movement and anti social behaviour in increasingly sanitized and controlled urban places. Exploration involves research and intervention. Research is wandering, talking, thinking and intervention might include climbing, penetrating, playing with, nurturing, and/or pissing on boundaries; physical, mental and social that we encounter. Locations have recently included Berlin’s Mitte and Wedding areas and the Greenwich Peninsula, London. Outcomes of these participatory performances are transformed into guidebooks in order to, in turn, activate another layer of engagement with the chosen location.


1 2 days planning : £200/day = £400 (your planning + recruitment of your artist/s for w/shops)
2 15 w/shops @ £200/day = £3,000 (this is now for 10 w/shops (full day) which will include artist/s preparing web guide etc at end of project) + 5 days R & D for you)
3 Artist Assistant contributions = £1000 (we had requested this budget for you to have an assistant budget as you needed during w/shops but now this will go directly to your R & D budget)
4 Guide publication = £500 (R & D dissemination)
5 Festival event = up to £1000 (this is the maximum and needs to deal with production of festival event and all associated costs –everything)

Total: 5,900