Started January 2010 [by Jack Thurgar]

This is a scrapbook dedicated to the study of London's weeds and the wild places where they grow. Wildcornerz also looks at the languages, cultures and mythologies that develop in these cracks.


What is a Wildcorner?

A Wildcorner is a term referring to a gap that has been left to grow wild in the city. The term encompasses every wild piece of land no matter the size, from large disused sports grounds to small patches of commercial wasteland, to a crack in the pavement. As long as this gap in the man made landscape harbours some kind of weed, then it is considered a Wildcorner.

Wildcorners and Wildcorridors* are dotted all over the capital and vary in content, depending on their location and history. One thing most have in common, is that they are normally restricted in someway from public access or boarded off and hidden from public view altogether. In this blog we focus particularly on the Wildcorners of south east London.

* Wildcorridor; a word used to describe a channel or pathway that runs through an urban landscape, which facilities the propagation and growth of weeds. This includes railway sidings, rivers and canals.



Urban and Suburban Weeds

By the term 'weeds' we are of course referring to the cities wild plants and flowers. But their are also two other weeds that grow in the city.

'Graf' like its botanical relation, has many families and strains. Both of these weeds can often be found together, sharing many qualities including their adaptive nature and unregulated status. Both in many cases, originally entered and populated the city using the railway network.

Another 'weed' that historically flourishes in London is invisible and uses the tops of tower blocks to propagate. Pirate radio like its weed relatives, grows away from the public eye and is constantly adapting to exploit these same gaps across the cities FM radio spectrum, fighting and flourishing in-between the commercial stations.

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Thursday 16 February 2012

Conscious Outsiders

  I have been thinking recently about artists who have been an inspiration to my own work or i feel their work shares something with mine.
In one way or another i think these artists all create their own worlds within their work.
 Plus my mildly autistic brain loves this list ish!
.. so in no particular order then;

Taskforce

 Legendary UK Hiphop crew from Highbury N9; brothers Farma G and Chester P Hackenbush.
 Their MFTC [music from the corner] mini albums were only released on cd and made, financed and distributed by themselves. The underground, street, localness of their music, mixed with old folk samples and reflective poetic lyrics, make these tunes contemporary folk recordings of there own.
 Taskforce would defiantly been in both of my above categories and high up there to!
Chester's bars [the second Mc on the above tune] are particular favorites of mine.

Harry Partch


Alan Moor


Kit Williams

Ooo a visual artist.

Hayao Miyazaki





JRR Tolkien

i dont care if Peter Jackson made it Pop again. My dad used to read me these books when i was a boy before sleep.
I loved them then and love them now.
Warning; there are a some real dicks in this BBC archive footage.

Monday 13 February 2012

The Wise Crow of Southwark


 John Constable is a name i have been told to check by several friends who know my own work with the explorer Solomon Wild and the borough of Lewisham.
 John Crow's [as he is know] written work, channels the spirit of 'The Goose' a female prostitute whos body lays in a former graveyard in SE1. He is also a historian and pychogeographer of his own beloved borough of Southwark.
His honouring rituals to the dead 'guise' happen on the 23rd of every month at the gates of the Crossbone graveyard site, which is now a wildcorner.

Looms [SE14 beat maker]

Local musician/producer and my good mate Looms , is on soundcloud. Seriously deep tunes [ i mean this both metaphorically and sonically.]
 Looms's beats marry synthetic sounds with organic ones plus atmosphere and tone with head-nod drums and grooves.
[images on his soundcloud made or selected by urs trooly.]

Sunday 12 February 2012

New sighting! New Cross Gate - Lewisham Natureman

I spotted the Stag spirit from the platform at New Cross Gate station. It was grazing in a glade of a wildcorner below the street. I left the station, passed down the ally and around behind the shops, creeping up slowly for a closer look.







Monday 6 February 2012

E8 Street Legends


 Hackneys legendary underground uk hiphop crew 12 Stone Productions.
 Original line up:
 G-Lansun - producer/mc   Cuba - mc/producer [with the cool lisp] Kulture - mc [a giant] and Kombiashi - mc
Active in the 90's and early 0's, the crew then disperse to follow individual projects but have recently reformed with an altered line up.  They are regarded by those that know, including other legends such as Taskforce, Skeme and Kelz to be among the original pioneers of the 'London sound' using there hackney grammer [rather than the fake american accents] in their bars. You can hear there influence on many later uk hip hop crews, most notably the former poster boy of 'Urban' movement [record company and the media's attempt to package together and market all the various contemporary black music genres and culture] another Hackney resident Klashnakoff.
 When they came out they sounded like no one else and indeed the inventive and 'ghetto' production still sounds of its own.

Patrick Keiller's Great Landscape



I cant  believe I have never seen this classic before.