Image/Sound/Text
This is Tate, but this is Britain
To me there are two London’s, the London where I live, which is Brixton, and the London of the Tate. The two are separated by more than the Thames. They are two different worlds, both existing side by side, but both have entirely different environments, different atmospheres, different language, different everything.
Within the Tate there is a slowness that surrounds you, be it in the colours, the light browns and creams, or the quite stillness of the place. It can be an altogether serene experience but it is not part of my world. After every visit, I leave the gentle sophistication of Pimlico, where I still feel like a tourist, and cross over into the mild paranoid tension of Brixton.
I have lived in the U.K. now for six months, four of those in Brixton, in which time I have become very fond of Brixton and I even call it home now, but it is not the London I had envisaged prior to moving here - that London is back over in Pimlico.
IIn my photos I have tried to emphasize just how separate these two ideas of London are. As serene and peaceful as the Tate is, just how welcoming is it to its fellow neighbours across the river?
Robbie Sweeny
www.flickr.com/romeosghost
