Occupied Space

Ben Roberts
Occupied Space

Photographs: Ben Roberts

Text: Naomi Colvin

Publisher: Here Press

24 pages

Year: 2014

Price: 45 €

Comments: Illustrated softcover, 28,8 x 21,2 cm. In very good condition but the pages of text are marked. Reprint of 2014 limited to 1000 copies. (First published in 2012)

On the 15th October 2011, protestors representing the global Occupy Movement set up a semi-permanent camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in central London. The aim of the protests was to encourage discourse and raise awareness of social and economic inequalities.

On the 25th of October, several UK newspapers and media outlets ran stories claiming that ‘thermal imaging’ proved that only 10% of the 250 tents in St. Paul’s Square were being inhabited overnight; I was immediately sceptical of these claims.

This series of photographs catalogues some of the communal and private spaces that were installed in the St. Pauls and Finsbury Square camps. The traces of activity and inhabitance serve as a document of the intense utilisation of a limited space by a large number of both permanent and temporary residents, and as a counterpoint to the claims of the mainstream media.

In April 2012, ‘Occupied Spaces’ was published in book form by London based publisher Here Press.