Tales of The Laundromat - Coin Operated

The first two weeks of this project has dashed by in this elongated timeframe that is a global pandemic. Amidst this incomprehensible normality, it has been nothing but a joy to hear the comforting accents outside of the four walls of my lockdown/furlough bedroom/office/London extortionate rental and to feel the fullness of diverse lives that are coming down the phone line from owners and workers of these dear, charming, overlooked liminal spaces - the local launderette. 

When I saw the wider project call out, I knew straight away that this was going to be part of my story. 

Tales of The Laundromat - Coin Operated, was born after some time of research and pondering why I happened to find the launderette such a connecting space for me. I lived above one and next to another for three years in London, one turned out to be a cover meth den and the other the loveliest Hackney lady who consoled me when my bike got stolen from my own hallway. 

But there was more than just the everyday shop front that spoke to me, I was also thinking about my own BBC heritage and also unearthing the stigma that initiated with Chinese owned laundrettes. My own granddad was a greaser and came to Liverpool in 1945 on the blue funnel line, and so began eventually the chip shops he owned and the ones my parents worked in. To some degree, there is a similar feeling one can find between these spaces, that is what draws me. The customers really got to know my mum as the serving front and my dad as the chef, and a relationship was built over many years, as the area changed so did my dad's entrepreneurial spirit. Cakes in a chipshop, as well as arcade machines, tables and chairs can happen. Coffee and computers, live music and books in a launderette can too.  
With the recent Covid racial attacks on people of Chinese ethnicity at the outbreak of Covid, plus BLM and the events ensuing from the death of George Floyd, and the many individuals that come before him, never has it been more necessary for a democratic political space to be embedded in society in the midst of the everyday, in plain site. That is the local launderette, where race, class and social hierarchies fade, and the fakery can be stripped. Because your laundry is full of intimates and the assistant is your agony aunt and a non judgemental guide who can tell you how it is and care for something that belongs to you. Or, just a washing sanctuary where the mundane is antidote to the peaks and troughs of life, there is always the steady whirl of the drum and the comfort of your sweater on spin, a shared space without agenda. A place where the elderly and the lonely can come to feel a part of things again. 
 
I wondered during this time, where is the Chinese voice amongst the Black voice, how can they strengthen each other, their fights are very different yet the end result is the same on a people, on an individual and on the community and what can be accepted and not. So, I had a Zoom call with a Canadian Chinese acquaintance in Toronto during lockdown and he said to me, my parents' own a restaurant. And I said, oh, my folks used to own a chipshop. And he said, actually that's what my parents have too. 

And I knew, because when I was at school, that's what I would tell my friends, that my parents had a restaurant. 

Class and race and prejudice are thorny and complicated and deeply wounded in ancestral psyche and if we can just be bold and not ashamed, from those layers of racial prejudice and hatred, then we could address one aspect of mass injustice. 

Listening to the stories of others and giving them the space and platform to feel heard and to share their lives, what they have experienced is like a ninja privilege to accost people and get to know them in a way you can only do via art or a place like the launderette, or chipshop. There's something heartening about setting up a business and being hands on, like mopping the floor or fixing a machine. I spent so much time being ashamed about my parent's business when I was at infant school and to comprehensive because of comments and remarks, that I didn't even reap the benefits of stuffing my face. Now I would fully celebrate my parent's life's work. It led me to have a chance to have choices. 

So, I am collecting stories and exploring how the local laundrette, these charming liminal spaces are core to our communities but often the special, intimate exchanges that take place are hidden and overlooked. This coupled with the dwindling launderette businesses in the UK has motivated me to create a new project that calls out for the stories from people who work in those laundrettes, from owners to attendant and also the diverse customers and regular visitors who use their services, and the connections that take place. I think the laundrette democratises across class and race and in its banality, it’s a place to build memories and friendships through the routine wash to more lively enterprises like your own. 

I have started to connect with launderettes up and down the country and I have even filmed in a social distanced way in one. It's amazing what nuggets of truth people code their life by, and when it pops out of their mouth so unexpectedly, you can only smile at the uniting humanity of us no matter what work outfit you don. 

TAKE PART!

This is the first port of call, where you can take part. So here is the journey unfolding, amongst a bit of pandemic average mayhem that is 2020. 

Pssst, please can you share and pass it on, I'd love to hear/see and read your laundromat experiences. There wouldn't be a proper wash without you... 

 

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