Co-Living London
Marvina Sinjari
Maria Tanasescu
The three directors of this documentary come from Greece and Romania, and from different creative backgrounds:
Marvina Sinjari graduated from Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales in 2022 and her work centres around alternative sustainable construction materials with a focus on the benefits of hemp. In 2021 she co-founded the integral cooperative MIKILIO in Athens promoting circular economy. She has participated in contemporary art exhibitions and organisations such as NEON, Whitechapel Gallery, Documenta14, and Heritage & Museums.Furthermore, she has participated in Public Art and Architecture festivals and in architecture workshops focusing on physical construction, restoration and the environment, in Greece, Portugal, UK. In 2019, she participated in the artists residency at Xarkis festival, in Cyprus. In 2018 she worked in Portugal, at Oficinas do Convento, a non-profit organisation, where she was an assistant to artistic productions and architectural activities, such as natural building workshops, carpentry, ceramics, screen printing and more.
Maria Tanasescu is also completing her Masters in Architecture degree at CAT, where her thesis focuses on social engagement. She has worked at architecture practices in England and Wales and is currently part of a collective that helps people better understand and obtain sustainable energy solutions. She is an active member in the Architects Union.
Mary Konstantopoulou is a design tutor with non-profit organisation STORE, hosting workshops for young people, and has taught in multiple higher education institutions in London. Currently she teaches masters of architecture at the University of Westminster, as well as working as a Part II Assistant at Jan Kattein Architects on civic and public realm projects. She graduated with a Distinction from the MArch course at the Bartlett, UCL. Her work revolves around human communities and their connection to non-human beings and environments through fiction and film.
Our expectation of living in London turned out to be very different to the reality we encountered. We found that, even though people come here for better job prospects, rent prices force people to share houses. This is starting to influence other places like our home countries where co-living is not widespread with non-family members.
We started this project as a way to creatively channel our collective frustrations towards an honest depiction of our shared living experiences in London. Despite being the centre of one of the richest economies in the world, few can afford their own place either by renting or buying. And so, naturally, through chats with people we meet we have been confronted with endless stories which are accumulating into a co-living diary. This project documents UK housing standards and conditions, and questions how we might choose to share our homes. We want to understand what makes communities thrive, enhancing locality and social sustainability as a response to not only the endless housing crises all over the world, but also as a response to the shared environmental crisis we have been facing.
We question how housing is being pushed to the margins of the environmental crisis; we posit that housing in urban settings is at its centre - with over 34,000 unoccupied properties, and yet as many more in fast development, our enquiry starts with London, with a plan to expand to other large European cities.
We aim to collect as many stories as we can, and we have been working on our online presence through social media + website for collecting resources. We created an anonymous survey, and have been recording stories from our friends and acquaintances. We are currently refining our filming guidelines, and creating narrative animations for anonymity.
Our project has been most successful in fostering social awareness regarding living conditions in London, extending beyond human relationships, and cultivating a sense of collective responsibility.
