London & the little crumb The wanderings of an Erasmus student

February Ist found me in a quiet boarding hall in Charles de Gaulle airport. An hour to go before the great ride over the clouds, my first one ever. An hour with nothing to do apart from taking delight in the situation I was in, at that very moment just before the great adventure.

From high up in the skies to deep down in the tube, here is a glimpse of my big dive into London life.

When I got off the bus from the airport, near Baker Street, I went to the tube station and bought a ticket, trying to produce my best English accent ever. I did not want to look like a lost French tourist, but I am afraid this is only what I was at the moment. This is there, in the tube, that I got my very first impression of Londoners, or anyway, of one kind of Londoners. I was very impressed by the tidy rows of black polished shoes, waiting silently to get back home after a long day’s work. As I had not yet found an accommodation for my three-month stay in London, I was heading for Tooting, a southern surburb of London, to spend a few days with my cousin and his pregnant wife. And there I got my second

impression of London, which was quite a shock compared to my “tube experience”. During my first exploring walks, the weather was cold, damp and grey - no problem with that as I had expected it to be that way. I walked (and got lost) through seemingly never ending and dull streets, with definitely English looking houses, stuck together on both sides. But when I got near Tooting train station, London was suddenly strange to me. This place did not look very good and was quite poor, but it did not look at all like Parisian suburbs. Everything was odd to me and I really felt like a fish out of water - I liked it though. There were a lot of African and Indian people in the streets, and spicy smells, and echoes of Caribbean music and great covered markets stuffed with clothes, curios and food - better than Aladdin’s cave! There in Tooting on my fisrt day in England, I took one of the best pictures I would shoot during my stay. It is a shame that I was too intimidated at that time to take other street shots.

It is now clear that this experience determined how I would look at London from then on. I would be less impressed by the foreground big buildings than by the background everyday look of life. It was not so different from France as it was also occidental, but it was also at the same time completely exotic. A few days later, after having got lost once again (and this became my favorite London

sport), I moved into a lovely four level house, not far from my school in Elephant and Castle and London Bridge. My flatmate was a single welsh woman in her fourties, with whom I got on very well. This place rapidly felt like home and I got used to living the English way.

But London would never leave me alone and would keep on surprising me each day. I kept on asking myself numerous excessively relevant questions such as : “So many foreigners here, where have I landed? Am I really in London?” “So many people speaking French loudly on the bus, can’t they keep quiet? This isn’t exotic at all!” “Why are these English soaps always medicals or police investigations?” “What does that thick dull pink fitted-carpet have to do with the bathroom?” “Are these plastic flashy-looking vegetables really eatable?”etc. Day after day, I went through a wide range of feelings about this crazy city : I enjoyed being called love or darling in the shops. I could hardly understand what the man was asking me with his strong Indian accent. I felt so lost in my big school, trying to find my way to meet my teachers and set a timetable.

It was exhausting to try and understand what was going on during the lectures, while everyone was talking so fast and so softly. It was so peaceful and magical down there in the darkroom. I felt like being a fish out of water when I wandered about in Indian and African markets, or when I found myself caught amongst a black-veiled Muslim congregation after a demonstration. It was exciting to sit on the upper deck of the bus and watch the streets from above. There I was able to catch many strange situations like that old man dancing with a little girl I saw though the window of a Chinese take away. Very soon, I could not deny I was already feeling as if I was a part of that giant fruity spicy pudding, topped with a crumble of clouds. It tasted delicious mixed with the sweet custard of English words.

So, what does a random day of a French crumb look like?

I admit these three months were easy-going ones: I only had to be at school nine hours a week. So, let’s show a serious face and take as an example one of my two shool-days of the week in LCC – the London College of Communication. 9.00 eyes opened, a quick look out of the window, some lemon curd on my toast and a cup of tea – here I go! 10.00 darkroom session in the dungeons of the school 12.30 lunch with the other girls from Estienne in the school cafeteria, jacket potatoe with baked beans 1.30 typographic design lecture

4.00 a walk on Southbank, browsing in a book store, sketching at the Tate Modern 7.00 ready meal at home while watching Masterchef on tv (cooking program) 8.30 Swing lesson while a big band is playing 10.00 a drink in The George pub with some of the dancers 12.00 back home, eyes closed in front of the late tv programs.

Well, a crumble pudding might not be enough to describe London…

Another striking point was something I would expect to be more of a southern habit. I knew the “cosy” and “home sweet home” aspect of English culture but not at all the “outside in the cold” bit. London features lots of freezing partly covered markets like Old Spitalfield or Camden Town. They are all sell a mix-and-match of various styles so that everyone can be pleased, from the English yuppie to the punk or hippy people. My best market memory is in Old Spitalfield market, when I sat down with a friend at a dark wooden table, to eat steaminghot Thai nooddles, squashed into the waves of the crowd, with salsa music just behind and Russian tourists next to us.

On Friday and Saturday nights especially, pubs are too crowded, so if people want to have a drink, they simply sit on the pavement and joyfully get drunk there, even in Februry! During these nights, London suddenly changes into a big village and it feels as if everyone could know each other. London architecture is also and once again surprising. A look at its skyline from the southbank is tell-tale. Miles away from the Haussmanian order and regulation of Paris, here is the big change I was looking for. There is no style, no shared code, nothing to link or unify one building with another. Each architect seems to have cooked up his own recipe without any will of creating something which would play on the same ground as other buildings. Here, each building is a universe of its own, telling its own story. All in all, it is like a big show of the London spirit : people from all over the world living together, assuming and asserting their differences, sometimes for the worst, often for the best.

Let’s look a bit closely at one of these buildings. No, not Big Ben, go further East. Well, not Tower Bridge! Go North then. Here we are, in the very core of the City : the LLoyds of London headquarters. Unveiled in 1986, this amazing skyscraper designed by world-wide-famous Richard Rogers is a spectacular celebration of the engineering aesthetic. Everything, from the lifts to the pipes, is visible on the outside of the structure. Despite the criticisms from some of the 10,000 or so who worked in the giant tower, the Lloyds Building has become a landmark as famous as Big Ben. However, this was not the first “scandal” by Rogers. He had already designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris with Renzo Piano, using the same inside-out effect. The futuristic look of the Lloyds Building is a good example of London’s never ending face lift. And this is, in my opinion why this city will always be ground-breaking and will keep on surprising people.

Ok, let’s go for it: a little crumb in the pudding

Maybe this is what I was, or maybe this metaphor is not amusing anymore, nethertheless, that time in London made a very happy crumb of me! Being immersed in the English custard all day long enabled me to feel much more confident when speaking this language. I learned lots of exciting and useful phrases such as “he is as cool as a cucumber” or “to take the mickey out of somebody”. I think I fell in love with this curious city, although I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why. Maybe because it was completely different from the postcard image I associated with it as a memory of a former trip there as a little child. Maybe because it kept on surprising me even after three months. Maybe because I made great friends there.

As far as my experience with the LCC school is concerned, it helped me to consider graphic design in a more relaxed way than I did in Paris. I did not have the pressure to succeed, so I took this opportunity to experiment with things without being afraid of ending up in a dead end. I also spent thrilling hours in the dark room, which I had not had the chance to do since secondary school. I had plenty of time to experiment with classical photography and fill my sketch books again. This widening of horizons and creative processes did me good and I came back knowing that my approach to design would be changed for ever.

Lived, drawn and photographed in London by Claire Agopian February 1st - May 2nd 2006 Printed in École Estienne Paris - January 2007