Stories about London, Culture & Creativity

So this week I had the pleasure of meeting Roger Gastman, the man behind the Beyond the Streets exhibition which toured the US and is now over here at Saatchi gallery from the 17th Feb, quite a ground breaking show to be seen in our city.
The show he’s put together is the amalgamation of his time and experiences and education within the graffiti culture and the broad depths its shown him, and that’s perfect for an inquisitive person like me, right up my street.
I’ve known of and probably you’ve known of Roger from the books he’s made, shows he’s put on, films he’s made, magazines, interviews and various curations his name has been beside for the last 20+years, a real inspiring body of work on a part of the culture that is really what I have tried to be about for the last 20yrs also, and he’s done it big, representing at a very high professional level, this was going to be an education. I got the hook up on email through another culture stalwart, the author and artist Caleb Neilson whom, I helped a little last year on a project he was putting together with Roger. I knew Roger was in town for the show, I hollered, and he kindly accepted. I met him at the set up at Saatchi’s in a room full of people I’ve seen in photos and film and read about, quite a privilege, and we then took a walk to his Airbnb to sit down and have this conversation, this is some of Roger Gastmans, Bethesda Maryland Washington, culture and creativity story, enjoy, this is F24.

Photos of the Beyond the Streets show London by Martha Cooper 2023.

This weeks chat is with Jimi from GANG Studio. I’ve know Jimi for years, a lot of you have also. We met in the early 2000’s through our shared good friend and Brighton stalwart Jode. When I met him he was already thoroughly on his journey with creativity, I remember a time I was getting interviewed for a magazine, they were doing a piece on my shop, we’d just started working with Jimi and the interviewer suggested we were taking him under our wing, which may have been the perception but not the reality, my friend replied by saying, Jimi’s too big to fit under our wings, meaning he was already a creative force to be reckoned with, with an unrivalled skill set and vision. He had the spirit, the energy and the belief that he just could do, and do he would. He’s produced loads of great work which we’ll hear about but tell you what though, it was really interesting him explaining that belief in himself and its root and how that behaviour, attitude, the ‘I’ll have a go’ approach to things wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Not in an overly negative way, just the amount of pressure it puts you. We had an amazing chat, Jimi has achieved a whole lot since putting himself out there as an artist and creative and we talk about all of that and how he see’s himself and how his he is creative now after all these experiences. This is his story about London, culture and creativity. Enjoy!