Between the areas of Spitalfields and Aldgate in east London, where Middlesex and Wentworth Streets converge to form Petticoat Lane, lies a stretch of market stalls selling clothes, street food and everyday goods. This very space became the setting for a short workshop on place-writing, held in October 2023 by Anima Loci editor Tommaso Gorla as part of a wider project on dissertation practices with students from London Metropolitan University. For 20 minutes, participants attuned to their surroundings, letting the area’s images, sounds and events generate that stream of location-driven impressions and associations that usually go unnoticed but were here captured into spontaneous forms of writing. The collective contribution below is a small selection of these attempts at seizing place, the moment in which place happens.
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