Are you a skateboarder yourself and/or was skateboarding something that interested you prior to working on this piece? Or did you see skateboarding more as a crucible from within which issues of ownership of space and regulation of behaviour could be discussed?

I grew up in Bath and used to skate around the Victoria skate park, but mostly I just enjoyed the community and social aspects of things. I skate as a means of transportation every week now, but mostly as you said, I saw the attempted closure of Southbank as very poignant case of issues of ownership of space, but on top of that a blatantly hypocritical stance to be taken from somewhere that should be an area for all cultures.

The wider context surrounding the idea of skate-stoppers is an interesting one – being of a certain age, I can recall a time when skate stoppers weren’t part of the urban landscape but they did have a precursor – which had even more sinister undertones – what is referred to now as ‘hostile architecture’. The first example I can recall seeing of this were in the late 80’s/very early 90’s – whereby businesses (generally multi-nationals at first – McDonald’s being the first example I recall) used serrated metal plates to deter people from sitting on their windowsills. The justification given for this was to ‘deter loitering/begging’ at the time – which has subsequently been revised to the catchall description of ‘anti-social behaviour’. What’s your opinion on this?

It’s shocking to hear, but not unbelievable. It’s quite funny that ‘hostile architecture’ has now essentially become ‘defensive architecture’ in a more friendly rebrand, clearly still having the exact same intentions. On the point of architecture like this deterring ‘anti social behaviour’, I find that notion to be the crux of the issue, I cant think of anything more anti-social than the closure public spaces, spaces for freedom of expression, community/culture and art. Whether closing down a skate spot, or arming a McDonalds or wherever, if your aim is to disperse groups of people you are against social behaviour.

Clearly, any modification to exterior architecture, (private or public) is deeply political in so far as the classification of any type of behaviour as being ‘anti-social’ presupposes a norm, or assumed acceptable version of public behaviour. Was your work influenced by this kind of thinking?

Yes definitely. There’s a kind of ‘our culture or no culture’ attitude within the attempted closure of Southbank, I think especially in England (but definitely not exclusive to) there has always been an acceptable way to act and to speak or to dress associated with establishment, but when these ideals become asserted upon members of the public, forcing them, there becomes a dark and sinister sense of control. Spaces like the Southbank, no matter how adverse to the accepted or presumed norm, need to exist for there to be any real sense of freedom of expression.

Talk us through the genesis of the idea and how you arrived at the eventual outcome please…

For a while I’ve been interested in defensive architecture, and since moving to London I have really noticed how much need there is for public spaces, there was a great feeling spending time in and around the Southbank for this project, it was one of the only times I really felt people actively engaging in their environment, it felt special and unique to the rest of London, which I often feels disconnected from the people that inhabit it, like a museum where it feels wrong to touch anything around you.

The photographs you sent over appear to suggest that your ‘skate stoppers’ were physically attached to aspects of SB and other bits of London architecture (at least temporarily) – how did that process work, and, were you approached by anybody (from either side of the argument) whilst doing this?

The idea was to put them in and around the Southbank centre. With a friend, I started laying them out near the under croft and photographing them. I was approached by the Southbank centre security while placing them down, at first just resting them on the side, which, “so long as I was quick” they were fine with, but when some of the letters started to fall off I used some tape to hold them down and that apparently was against the rules, so I was told to leave at that point.

I came back another day to get some more photographs within the skate area, and spoke to a few skateboarders who were interested in what I was doing, they all seemed concerned about both the lack of spaces to skate and defensive architecture, as well as the skateboarders there were a number of members of the public that were watching me set up my photographs and asked about the project, all with a positive response.

What was the concept behind using language forms for your skate-stoppers and why did you select the phrases/words you used?

All over the city you can find buildings designed with skate-stoppers, homeless spikes and different types of defensive architecture, and it isn’t always apparent what these ‘devices’ or ‘features’ are. So to highlight their purpose and existence I took a quote from the Southbank centre’s website (in particular the ‘about us’ page) “investing in future generations”. The quote seemed at complete odds with their attitude, and was the perfect corporate white noise that people would usually glance over.

Using this quote as the skate-stoppers, which are themselves blended into a sort of architectural white noise, I hoped to cause a thought process that led to people realising the irony and backwardness of using defensive/anti social architecture to deter ‘anti-social behaviour’.