Audio Interference 72: Dissident Island
“Areas that are now very affluent in London like Notting Hill or Camden Town, these would have been full of squatted places. Literally streets, like whole blocks of terraced housing that were squatted. From the 1960-70s onward there’s lots of people that ended up in possession of properties having initially squatted there.”
Dissident Island is an anarchist radio show broadcasting on the first and third Friday of every month from the London Action Resource Centre. Since 2007, Dissident Island has covered anarchist life in London, including the rise and fall of squatted social centers, and the Dissident Island archives offer a picture of the way squatters have changed the city, and the ways in which they’ve been affected by new laws and policing. Dissident Island also presents benefit shows in squatted venues, produces a zine, and offers radio workshops. This episode includes excerpts from an interview with Patrick Evans, one of the creators of Dissident Island, as well as clips from the show.
The voices you heard in this episode included Phoenix from Raven’s Ait, Paul from ANAL, Ben Rampart and Ben 52 from rampART, Lou and Matt from Made Possible by Squatting, and Dissident Island hosts John, Chick Pea, Bryn, Patrick IW. Thank you to Patrick Evans and everyone at Dissident Island for making this audio available to us.
Music: “Cataclysm” by the Flying Luttenbachers, “Hundred Years in Helheim” by Tri-Tachyon, and “The Pharaos Theme” by The Pharaos, all from the Free Music Archive.
Produced by Interference Archive.
Links:
Squatted Social Centres in London, 2007-2017, with Dissident Island Radio.
This episode was created by Patrick for the recent Interference Archive exhibition, Resistance Radio: The People’s Airwaves.
For more on the history of squatting in London, you can listen to Episode 20 of Audio Interference.
Raven’s Ait: “Squatters in the Stream,” on BBC News and “Green-living Squatters: Revolution in Surbiton,” in the Independent.
Social Centre Plus: “Anti-cuts jobcentre squatters resist bailiffs,” in East London Lines.
ANAL: “Squatters turn oligarch’s empty London property into homeless shelter,” in The Guardian.
rampART on squat!net.
This blog post on urban75.org has a description of the Made Possible by Squatting exhibition and lots of pictures.
