Graeme Miller’s LINKED is an artistic response to the creation of the M11 Link Road in East London in the 90s which involved the demolition of 400 homes, including Graeme’s own, amid dramatic and passionate protest. Launched in 2003, LINKED was originally commissioned by Museum of London and produced by Artsadmin.
LINKED has endured as perhaps the largest sonic installation and sculptural entity in London for 20 years. Since 2003 its transmitters have broadcast over a million times the voices of people who lived or worked in the area impacted by the road.
Along a 3-mile route between Hackney Marshes and Redbridge Roundabout, 20 analogue radio transmitters can be heard by anyone with a special receiver, revealing 60+ voices of people who once lived and worked in the area – resident families, road protestors, railway-workers, teachers, disco-goers, and artists from the substantial community living in houses destroyed by the road. Together the assembly of voices evokes a cross-section of ordinary East London life.
Over the years some of the transmitters have been lost – to a lorry crashing into a lamppost, to accidentally being taken down by contractors, to weather, time and entropy. Amazingly many have endured. For its 20th anniversary year, we have worked to restore the entire network, making it available to the public via monthly open days and a series of events. The first three of these open days were an offsite commission for TATE touring show Radical Landscapes programme at Morris Gallery.
In all we hosted 12 open days for audiences to experience LINKED in 2023 and 2024, with Leytonstone and Wanstead Libraries as our base and we are now working to build a system to make it available in 2025 and beyond.
Talks:
7 November 2024: London College of Communications
28 October 2024: Guided walk, London College of Communications
17 September: Leytonstone walking group for over 60s
11 July: 20 years of LINKED: screening & talk at Filly Brook, Leytonstone
18 May: Sound Table participatory conversation at Leytonstone Library
31 January: Talk at Morris Gallery: Abel Holsborough, Zaiba Jabbar, Graeme Miller, Hadrian Garrard
Listen to an excerpt on Late Junction, Radio 3 (1 hour into the programme)
CREDITS
LINKED was commissioned by the Museum of London in 2003 and originally produced by Mark Godber, Judith Knight and Gill Lloyd, Artsadmin. The making of LINKED was generously supported by Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, London Boroughs Grants Committee part of the Association of London Government, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the London Boroughs of Redbridge and Waltham Forest. The restoration of LINKED (2022 – 2024) is supported by Arts Council England.
With deep thanks to all the many interviewees, production teams and friends involved in developing LINKED.
Researchers who developed the interview content for LINKED (2003): Lucy Cash, Myra Heller, Dan Saul, Michael Sherin, Helen Statman. Original technical design by Simon Beer of Integrated Circles.
Production (2023/24): Steve Wald, Mike Harrison, Lydia Newman, Chris Warner, Lou Doyle, Vida Vojić,
Executive Producer: Nikki Tomlinson
Images: Graeme Miller