© Mo Greig

© Mo Greig

La Gare – Gare de Passy-La Muette © Hamish Stewart

Once again two projects presented and discussed. Fred Bellec had to withdraw and will present early next year; her place was taken by Mo Greig who opened the evening with an account of her work on borders.

Climate, conflict and repression, singly or in combination have provoked mass migrations and much of Mo’s early work on borders was looking at the efforts of East European governments to limit or repel such movements with fencing and patrols. Latterly the consequences of ill-thought Brexit drew her attention first to the Irish border and now to the internal borders within southern England. Mo’s presentation ended with the lorry parks hastily constructed in the English countryside to deal with new customs requirements away from the overstressed ports.

The second presenter was Hamish Stewart who showed a sequence of images taken over several years following round the Petite Ceinture, the 1860s railway circling Paris, linking the main lines and serving the then existing, still used defences of the city, beyond the built-up area, running in near-countryside. The city expanded towards it and rolled over it. It is no longer a boundary. Passenger services ended in the 1930s and goods traffic declined until the 1960s. It is now largely derelict, some stretches adjoining parks, others taken over by community groups or temporary bidonvilles. Station buildings on the west side of the city now house smart restaurants, a short stretch has been repurposed as part of the RER rail network. It is mostly in the survival of station buildings that its past is evident.

Both presenters adopted a straightforward documentary style of image making appropriate to their narrative, though Mo also made some use of a turning-page effect in moving from image to image. This linked perhaps to the question of who the intended viewers of the completed work might be – and how to reach them. (And, as far as we know, Atget did not photograph the Petite Ceinture.)

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 1 December when we will be rounding up thoughts, proposals, actions at this stage of the Swanscombe project.