The UK premiere of This Space Available (Gwenaëlle Gobé / 2011 / USA / 90’) will be screening within the Open City Docs Fest on Sunday 24 June at 14:00 in the Darkroom (near UCL Torrington Place).

Following the event, I will be chairing a panel involving the director Gwenaëlle Gobé alongside other panellists, including Leah Borromeo, a journalist currently directing and presenting a series of short films on arts activism for Channel 4’s Random Acts. The description is below and the trailer is above. Do come on out if you can make it – you can buy tickets here. Depending on how the discussion goes, I may write up some reflections after the event in a blog post.

“Which classes of society can write their messages on the city, and which classes of society are marginalized?” This question, and others, are ex…plored in a film about the way public space is used and regulated in cities across the world. Nowadays we can pay a little extra to remove advertisements from our iPhone apps and email, but what can be done to limit the saturation of our shared city spaces? This Space Available examines the arguments and approaches of street artists, activists and politicians around the world who are fighting to “reclaim the streets” from advertisers.