Astra Howard

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Description: For seven days the Action Researcher/Performer occupied a disused shopfront space at the entrance to Kings Cross station.  Writing necessarily backwards on the window surface in order for members of the public on the outside to read, she documented the happenings of everyday life as well as exposing relevant urban and social theories.  Once passing pedestrians saw themselves being written into the script, they obtained their own pen and starting writing on the outside of the window.  Soon locals announced that all of the whiteboard marker pens in the shops of Kings Cross had sold out, as everybody wanted to add their own personal ideas and opinions to the evolving narrative.  The barrier of the window seemed to have encouraged people to be more honest about their experience of the neighbourhood and created a catalyst for engagement between different socio-economic and cultural groups.  Locals described a new sense of community that had developed over the duration of the research week, expressing a fresh interest in, and concern for, people on the local streets who they had previously considered strangers.