This is a CTP of initiative: Transition Town Tooting (UK)
The Trashcatchers carnival was held in July 2010.
This was a large scale community carnival which involved a parade through Tooting and a picnic.
This was a critical turning point because it was the largest project that Transition Town Tooting had undertaken at the time and it was when people began to “dream big” and be more ambitious. For previous events had been smaller. For example, the first ‘Foodival’ had been one table in the street. The success of the carnival gave the TTT team the confidence to dream bigger and think about the different spaces in Tooting that they could use.
It was also important because it was a big community event that engaged and recruited a lot of people. Hence, they suddenly got circa 600 people on a mailing list that collected people’s names and engaged them in Transition Town Tooting. More people stepped forward and got involved in the organization too (including the interviewee).
Lucy Neal was a key instigator. She was the founder of TTT, around two years in advance. She had a long history in arts. She ran the London International Festival of Theatre. She was a driving force behind the carnival. She had the contacts too which brought other people on board – especially because she was a very collaborative person.
It was a joint project between Transition Town Tooting, Emergency Exit Arts (EEA) and Project Phakama UK. EEA are a carnival company where as Phakama are an engagement organization who put an emphasis on connection and communication.
There were lots of opportunities for the wider community to become involved in making things and for being involved in the carnival. There were workshops so that people could get involved in helping getting the carnival prepared. There were at least two day-long workshops. At the workshops there would be some people from TTT, 2 or 3 people from Phakarma, and at least one person from EEA. They also worked with schools and particular groups.
Everything was made from recycled materials. It was, thus, called the Trashcatchers carnival. They were really engaging with the idea of turning waste into something useful.
The centerpiece of the carnival was a procession on the 10th July. This involved the partial closure of the road. There were 800 participants. The procession started at a school, went through the main part of Tooting and then finished at Fishponds which is a green space but which is not often open for public use. So it tied together a number of things – including challenging spatial norms: a) claiming the road which is not often open for other uses apart from driving down it, and b) reclaiming the green space by questioning in a celebratory and joyous way why is it not available to the public more often. The procession was also adorned by a series of banners held by a number of people. These looked like protest banners but they were joyous messages (e.g. “surprisingly fun”).
The sankofa bird was their symbol. It is a bird that flies forward whilst looking backwards. So, it was symbolically used to convey the idea that through transition activism you are taking account of history and the future whilst being in the present.
There were numerous meetings with Transport for London and (the then London Mayor) Boris Johnston’s team. There was a lot of passing of responsibility around. It was right up until two nights before, and the practicalities of the event hadn’t been confirmed. For no-one wanted to say “Yes I give you permission to do this.” Yet, there was a lot of believing that it would still happen. Lucy knew about using spaces that people don’t normally use. You build the project then find a way to make it happen. Her confidence allowed everyone else to dream and plan to make this possible.
Preceding events:
There were the Trashcatchers workshops which were part of the carnival development and planning. The workshops were important because they got people together to think and dream what could be possible. The interviewee suggested that people don’t really think about what is possible for their place unless you give them the opportunity and space to do so.
The workshops created an invitation to think about the future. They also informed the carnival (e.g. on what kinds of costumes or floats people might make). The residents from one road decided to collectively dress up as wildlife, off their own back. So the workshops also built excitement.
Subsequent events:
The “unleashing” of TTT was held on the 12th of July (see CTP 116) – immediately after the carnival. This was the official launch event, held in the evening. The unleashing was a showcase. So there was a procession using the Sankofa bird. Then there were a couple of keynote speeches and an introduction to some of the things that were happening. There might have been a film too.
This summer (2016) there is a similar event scheduled, the Tour de Tooting. The fact that they have done it before means that they have the experience and tacit know-how for making it happen (e.g. the closure of the road, etc.) an, thus, people are not worried about it happening. This event builds on the experience and learning from the Trashcatchers Carnival.
In the aftermath of the carnival, the Foodival (a food related event) became bigger and more ambitious.
As the result of a carnival, the interviewee personally identified a form of arts practice that could be in line with the Transition town movement. So there have been more arts things that have been instigated in relation to other projects and activities. For example, she made a giant chili out of waste for the Foodival. She also made a giant bee to celebrate the arrival of the bees at the cemetery. TTT also had a pop-up shop in Tooting for 10 days. There was the idea of having a piñata. So she said it should be a bee and, in making that bee, she held workshops inviting people to help co-create it. Overall, then, arts have become much more integrated into Transition activities.
They are a very confrontation free group. No internal contestation was recorded at that point.
The only source of contestation was in working with other people in the community who were not members of the TTT. They were working closely with the Town Centre Manager and she had helped to procure a space where they could make and store the stuff that they were making. Near the end, she suddenly withdrew her support and they had to vacate the space within 24 hours and it was all very odd without any explanation. It was perhaps that she hadn’t realized the scale of what was being undertaken.
At the time of the carnival it was widely felt that this this was a big turning point for TTT: a massive and successful event that had engaged a lot of people, etc.
It contributed to the goals of TTT by connecting and communicating with people and dreaming a new future. These are the two big themes that link to the overall objectives of TTT. Now, they are not afraid of dreaming big. It was a turning point in terms of building the organizational confidence of the initiative.
Learning to dream big was the biggest lesson. The interviewee thinks that is probably the same for a lot of TTT people. They use it as a good example of what can be done: “We closed the high street and had a carnival so there is nothing really that you can’t do."
It was also a good example of community getting on with things without asking for permission, i.e. an example of community agency. It still gets regularly referred to as an example of being ambitious.
Furthermore, in planning Tour de Tooting, everyone knows that they need to have a narrative about what is going on. Hence, those initial workshops start with people being invited in and engaged in the process and being allowed to dream for themselves. That narrative is still relevant in a lot of the things that they are doing. It’s a bit of knowledge / experience / a model that they are able to follow which was pioneered in the carnival.
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