Urban Trauma

research and editorial

Urban renewal is a constant state for most cities, especially London. The urban environment is a place of collision. A collision of time, layers of stories and histories, personal and collective memories built upon one an-other and out of one another to create a sprawl of consciousness, resulting in a collision of materiality and memory. With the ever changing and transitioning materiality, I question how this effects the social histories and collective memories of the inhabitants.

Urban Trauma can be identified as an erosion of collective memories, collective amnesia. Collective memories are shaped by, and transmitted through, narratives. They intervene in the definition, creation, and mobilisation of social identities, they have a huge impact on intergroup relations, they influence the present.