Prangsta and co

Along the high street that is the Western front of Goldsmiths College, just near the plush offices of Debtford Town Hall, our immediate environs – and significantly the College’s street credibility – are enhanced by a couple of shops that have graduated from rather ratty used clothes joints to impressive art forms in their own right, with correspondingly artistic facades and window dressing (and commercial websites – though these are slow – see http://www.prangsta.com). Now I know that there are all sorts of stories about the history of these stores, and that this all revolves around the College owning the buildings, and the politics of squatting, and of creative endeavour, and of course of trendiness and clutter, of fires, of threats, of architectural dreamscapes and catastrophe (a nod to Buck-Morss, and Will Alsop) – but the one thing that shouldn’t be under question is that these places do add something important to the college in the way that is miles apart from, but just as crucial, as the slick corrugated lines of the ipod/shed/sccribble that is the new arts building. There have been a couple of visual anthropology films and essays written about this ‘street’ culture (including some filming inside the store for those who never ventured past the doorstep), but the bigger issues have to do with the gentrification of the New Cross area and the place of cultural mix as opposed to planned privatization and profit margins. There is a lot at stake – the horrendous blunder that was the renovation/destruction of the old Goldsmiths Tavern (which is only now edging back to a faint echo of its very late night glory) would be compounded, if these stores were lost. Any dismantling of such ventures (its not venture capitalism so much as ad-venture fashion) would entail the decimation of key reasons why Goldsmiths has appeal …

From: John Hutnyk – Academic Director, Centre for Cultural Studies
Work: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/staff/j-hutnyk.php
Blog: http://hutnyk.blogspot.com/
Links: http://tawdrysouvenirs.blogspot.com/
Events: http://whats-on-occasionally.blogspot.com/

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