Voices for the Alternative
Date
13.04.11
Information
I've currently got a exhibition of portraits from the March for the Alternative march that took place in London a couple of weeks ago. I was asked if I'd like to produce a piece about the march to show at Congress House, the headquarters of the Trades Union Congress in London. I decided to shoot a series of portraits and video interviews with several of the participants and ask them to say in their own words what they thought about the governments current austerity measures. It's a way to show what the vast majority of those there were trying to get across to the government and media. As usual the media focused almost exclusively on the anarchists kicking off at the end of the day, anything to avoid the real issues. (I couldn't resist taking a few shots myself as you can see from my previous blog). The video of the interviews will launched on the falseeconomy.org.uk website soon.
'I'm here today because I care. I'm scared for all the things I care about are going to go. I'm scared for hospitals, scared for education,scared for people with special needs. I'm scared for everyone who needs help is just going to be cut loose and I strongly believe that shouldn't happen'. Maddy.
'I'm a teacher and I've seen the cuts first hand,front line services. There cutting services for schools,for teachers,for students,and especially young teachers like me jobs are getting fewer and fewer.' Roland.
'I believe these cuts are politically motivated. They're destroying the education sector which is basically destroying our future in favour of short term gains for the banks and private sector'. Nachat
'I'm vehemently opposed to what the ConDems are doing to my country. My work takes me onto a psychiatric ward very frequently. I see a National Health Service buckling under the strain..To reorganise the NHS at this point is absolute madness and it's driven by ideology not whats good for people. How dare multimillionaires tell me and other people like me that we're in it together. No we're not.' Steph
'I'm a Billingsgate fish porter.I have children and I'm very concerned about their education. Also it's an absolute disgrace what they're doing to the NHS. The amount of people here is absolutely fantastic. It just goes to show if people get together and support let's see what we can actually do'. Peter
'We have the common issues in our lives,we have to fight back this kind of attack because it has a great affect on our social well being, our life and our future for ourselves and our children. All we want is a decent life in terms of education,health and housing and well paid jobs'. Yaher
