Lockdown Zine / July 2020

Social distancing measures have provided
greater room for us to consider the
ownership of space. As society looks to
reclaim its public realm from the pandemic,
Laura Brown questions the equality and
egalitarian credentials of Liverpool’s
pavements and shared spaces.
Public spaces, our pavements, squares, streets and parks will be of
increasing importance as we begin to emerge from our homes and
adjust to the outside again. Yet for our public spaces to work for
everyone, they must be shared in an egalitarian way.
Once we fully emerge from our homes, we are going to have to give
each other space, allow each other to breathe. And what that will mean is
recognising that we each have the same right to that public space. Yet, public
space is not equal; certainly, access to public space is far from equal. We
weaponise them because we bring into them the bias and prejudice we have in
the rest of society.
The most successful cities and places are built to serve the people who
live and work in them. The last three months have turned cracks into chasms
within the tears in our hegemonic society, making it evident the extent to which
we need to be able to share space. Our public realm is active and it’s possible
many did not realise how actively political our public spaces are. Public space
is the place where we define our ownership; where we protest, where we
rally; it is where we parade and celebrate. We talk of ‘taking to the streets’, the
physicality of turning our individual presence into a tens, hundreds, thousands
turns the street into a stage for a collective show of strength and identity.
The visibility in itself is seen as a political act, because the public realm is
increasingly privatised, increasingly part of our commercial state.
Erecting a statue of a slave owner because you’re grateful for his fiscal
contribution after his death two centuries ago is one thing; arguing he still
has a place to be venerated in the public realm is another. Asking people, as
you tell them that the public realm is equal, to be reminded through street
names, through statues, through the names of buildings, of a multi-million
pound industry that bought and sold their ancestors like cattle, is barbaric and
heartless.
Yet we are told our physical presence, our physical protest, is a threat, it
disturbs the status quo. In 2020 we are told protest threatens public health
during a pandemic. In 2011 it was civil disorder, fuelled by BlackBerrys. In 1981
they said it was lawlessness. In fact, two things unite 1981, 2011 and 2020;
race and the police. One is about a lack of visibility and a lack of ownership of
physical space, the other is the representation of the power that believes they
own the space. We are literally fighting over control of the pavements.
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