Streets In The Sky

Interactive Video Installation

Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town, Newham, East London. The block partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building; four people died and 17 were injured. The spectacular nature of the failure (caused by both poor design and poor construction) led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in British building regulations resulted.

Streets in the Sky is an interactive film, a story where the viewer determines the narrative direction. The film is pieced together from hundreds of documents found in the UK's National Archives. The documents include the testimonies of Ronan Point's residents.

After gathering the testimonies the project pieces together, not the event itself, but the court case that followed the explosion. The film re-enacts the legal inquiry into the collapse of Ronan Point. With no beginning or end, the film represents the inquiry in a neutral manner for the viewer to piece together the evidence.