READING THE CITY: social dividing lines in Lincoln’s Inn Fields

During this guided Artwalk, we visited the nearby Lincoln’s Inn Fields to confront its dark social history. Accounts from the lives of local residents – the affluent and those less well off – revealed a set of power relations that carry on still today. We visited the site of the Insolvent Debtor’s Court, to hear of some of its famous cases and to reflect upon the history of being in debt. We visited the house, now museum, of the famous architect John Soane, which was designed to showcase his immense personal collection.

We investigated these institutions – the House / Museum and the Courthouse / Debtor’s Court – and Lincoln’s Inn Fields’ public spaces to understand how embedded social inequity is in London, and how “normalised” this has become, in contemporary interpretations of urban life. 

Presented at “London Festival of Architecture” in July 2019, 
Presented at the “Festival of Alternative Art Education”, March 2020