The Welcome to Finsbury Park project was co-organised with the Transition Finsbury Park association to engage the London N4 local communities with their neighbourhood. It consisted in a 2-month field investigation using videos and was concluded in March 2010 by a workshop and the co-creation of subjective maps (these two activities are documented in the following manuals). Here below is a review of the project and some conclusions, co-written by myself and James Thomson from the Transition Finsbury park association.
The theme of the Dreams of Progress exhibition and most of its videos have been set before I found the hosting venue. I still wanted to arrange the exhibition so that it links to its physical context, or at least doesn’t deny it. I first looked at the history of the Westminster Reference Library, which is well known for being built on the former house of Isaac Newton, Lord Macaulay famously stating saying that the home of Sir Isaac Newton would be “well known as long as our island retains any trace of civilisation”. I was tempted first to incorporate this reference to the description of the exhibition because it fits nicely with the theme of progress. Later, I found it diminishing. I felt that it was denying the current function of the building. I was then inclined to instrument the fact that the space is a library, its mission of education for all is a dream of progress by itself. I decided after all to not introduce any connections with the library in the theme of the exhibition. What was much more tangible was the help from the staff of the library, which was felt by every visitor. The Dreams of Progress exhibition was in this space because of the help of its staff and their utopian vision of what a library should be; it came from their own initiative, not a mission statement.
The curatorial practice is not only about setting up the theoretical framework of an exhibition, writing and selecting artefacts. It is also about federating people around a project they understand is beneficial for them. Dreams of Progress was my first exhibition, it gave me the opportunity to gain experience on every front:
As part of the Children’s Art Day 2009and the Dreams of Progress exhibition, a storyboarding workshop was organised for the pupils of the year 4 from St Clement Danes School. Children learned how to create storyboards from pre-existing video material. Besides the fun and practical experience gained from the workshop, kids also learned how the same video footages can be sequenced to create many different stories; how what is showed everyday on TV is not an exact representation of reality but the result of a montage.
A philosophical debate about Utopia and Progress was held at the WRF in July 2009, as part of the Dreams of Progressvideo art exhibition. The debate attracted around 50 people from various backgrounds, including professors from London universities, philosophical students, art curators and engineers.
Short movies from international artists have been gathered along with corporate videos to form the Dreams of Progress art exhibition. Taking place at the Westminster Reference Library between the 6th and 18th July, the event will showcase past and present visions of the future.
As part of the 
