The Battersea mural was 276 feet by 18 to 12 feet. We were a group of people who collaborated on planning issues and I worked with with a voluntary organisation, the Mural Workshop, to set up the project. We called ourselves Battersea Redevelopment Action Group [which was established] to make sure that planning related to local people and provided affordable housing, jobs and open spaces for all the people rather than the demolition of all the industries losing the jobs and the building of luxury flats. We have learned subsequently over the last 30 years that this was not to be. So in 1976 you decided to undertake a mural project. How did you choose the site? It was part of a campaign to get the site handed over to local people rather than be turned into private housing. It wasn’t our wall but we gained permission from the owner, the Morgan Crucible Company, to paint the mural. The wall was later demolished when the factory was torn down. Can you describe the processes you engaged from planning the mural to its construction?
Barnes: No. [He laughs.] Obviously we had to start with a design but we also went to various organisations in the community to ask them what they wanted it to be about. We sent a questionnaire to these organisations—tenant and residents associations, action groups, trade organisations, housing organisations— asking them what the mural be about if you were doing it yourselves. So they gave us a list of things to get us started. There were about 60 people involved in the mural’s painting with some people doing longstanding work and others infrequently contributing. No other professional artists were involved—just me—and local people. There were children, pensioners, people on the estates. We painted the mural for two years, not every day. How many of those people who were involved do you still see in the neighbourhood today? Uh [long pause]...none. The area has become polarised between very rich people and very poor people. So the only housing now for poor people is from the estate where the