Dear Rachel,

I've been reading 'The Likes of Us: a biography of the white working class' by Michael Collins. It's a history of his family and the area where they have lived in Southwark, over the last 200 years. He talks about 'do gooders' writers who wanted to document how the other side live. Many of them come accros as patronizing and inauthentic. (maybe thats partly a validation of him writing about his own family!)

But it did make me think again about the delicate balancing act of making work about a place and being outsiders. I was thinking about David Hepher's work about south london tower blocks(he lives in Camberwell bit in a beautiful victorian terraced house). I seem to remember he describes his paintings as being 'landscape' ie he is simply recording his environment without passing comment or going anywhere near social issues. But is this good enough. I don't think that's our position?

S