Just a short post on the subject of belonging. Some people are “team players” some not but I think it’s fair to say most humans crave a sense of belonging no matter how slight.
Margaret Thatcher famously said there is no such thing as society, divide and rule politics at its worst and the start of the biggest demise of community, since the industrial revolution of the 18th/19th century. Tebbit told us to all get on our bike and find work which led to the tradition of staying close to ones family and support through friends and community to dissipate.
After close to 40 years it seems community is making a comeback and in a lot of ways its the new and improved version,with added choice and less hard labour (thats a whole different subject/discussion). For better or worse we are a social species and interaction is essential to our well being and growth both personally and as a whole.
I live in London and probably more than any city in the UK it has the most transient population,it’s more usual to speak to someone who was not born in this city than was,be it from another town or country,it’s one of the things that makes it so unique and special and in the past a magnet for like minded people seeking out oppourtunities only available here.Native Londoners have always welcomed outsiders,it’s what the city was built on.With that in mind it seems it is changing as technology allows the cost of living here and that craving for a simpler,community based,sense of belonging lifestyle beckons. Some people are moving back to where they came from either forced via the new Brexit rules or simply because they feel less at home here now.UK born people included.It’s hard to get a sense of belonging in London,you have to work at it and that is where the rise in such places as clubs and groups come in,a grass roots collectivism not seen since the 1970s.
I was born here but lived outside of London for many years when my parents shipped us all out in th 1970s with the promise of cleaner air and better prospects. There was quite a mass exodus at the time and Londons population fell dramatically by 2 million in the 70s and 80s only to rise again in the 1990s which is when I came back to seek my fortune in the world of editorial photography. Unlike now it was almost impossible to do this from outside one of the big cities,you had to be in the thick of it,mobiles were still quite a rarity and expensive,no internet to speak ….you had to be there,present ,in person.So off I went. I knew a few people,had relatives up here so was lucky but I knew no one in the industry. I had left behind my community and friends,ties that have never really been mended I had to make a new community and find a new place to belong.It was a lonely long process and one on reflection I was very ill equipped to embark on,in many respects i’ve lived a life before photography and quite a different one since with an ever increasing sense of not belonging to one or the other.In conclusion social mobility can be and in most respects is a good thing but in my experience more conversation on the effects on the individual could be an interesting topic of discussion,isolation and a sense of belonging to neither would do well to be addressed.
DEAN BELCHER CRITICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 