Collective transformation, part 1

Something quite extraordinary happened recently, and I’ve got proof. I know we’ve all been distracted by more pressing concerns since then: what Michael Phelps smoked, the global economic meltdown, and a variety of other headline-grabbers. But for the first two days of February 2009, Londoners lived in an ephemeral fairytale (for most, and I acknowledge nightmare for some). Yet however temporary, the transformation of London’s public spaces and social norms was very real. In this great metropolis, transport infrastructure came to a standstill. We were forced to experience our city on a different scale (local), and at a different pace (slow). No dashing here, no rushing there, just a few cars, no buses, no tube. Citizens brave enough to venture out from warm comfortable interiors were rewarded with fancifully surreal urban landscapes and sociable neighbours with whom to share their bemused marveling at the unfamiliarly familiar. We became both spectacle and spectator in a grand cosmopolitan folly, re-experiencing our city space together. It almost feels like it didn’t really happen now, as if it were some sort of mass hallucination. But it’s not just the odd remaining patch of snow in a shady corner that confirms this wasn’t merely a collective dream. Hundreds of people took thousands of pictures - of the views out their windows, their quiet streets, their frolicking pets, their friends and families, their snow sculptures, and many other scenes both quotidian and iconic - to document this once-in-twenty-year event. You can see them here.