It’s an ugly, unhealthy and dangerous road, spanning six lanes of traffic at some points, and plans to build a corresponding South Circular on the other side of London were eventually shelved when it became clear that around 30,000 residents would have to be displaced to make way.
Yet in a city that’s in large parts gentrified and identikit, the area around the A406 has remained stubbornly chaotic, and offers a site of possibility. “It’s a breath of fresh air, a breath of exhaust fumes,” 10Foot jokes. “No one wants to put newbuilds and Pret a Mangers next to the North Circular, it’s still a place in London with space.”
As we follow the road, he mentions writers who likewise find meaning in the unlikely, ugly, and superficially dull: Octavia Butler, JG Ballard. “It’s a grubby grey tiara,” he declares, alluding to the road’s arc across the top of the map. “Each tributary road is a jewel, to list them would ruin your moment of finding them, enjoy discovery and keep it off the internet”.
We chat about how graffiti artists get to see cities from hidden angles, and experience the way that different networks – transport, utilities, people – are superimposed in one location. “Understanding it in abstract enables you to live it in the particular.”
10Foot’s A406 project is a logical expansion of his activities in recent years beyond the practice of putting paint on walls. He’s been working on a set of audio recordings around the road for several years – a project derailed more than once by life circumstances and the police. The move to this new medium is a response, in part, to the complexity of the urban environment itself.
“It’s full of sideways jokes, experiences, references and the graffiti only starts two-thirds of the way through,” he explains. The project is informed by 10Foot’s new life circumstances and changes in his desire to exist, which now include avoiding prison and physical peril.
“A lot of the things that I’m known for are underpinned by running down train tunnels and hanging off infrastructure with no safety precautions.
“It’s lust for life, but that lust for life now means I want to see a little person thrive and be surrounded by love.” So how does he now reflect on the reckless adventures of his life? There’s a long pause. “It makes sense in the sense of trying to make sense of a world that makes no sense.”
It’s dark, and we’re in a small industrial estate set back from the road containing cash and carries, specialist food retailers and suppliers of slot machines. The streets here are covered with tags, underlining that graffiti artists who mark the city also experience it closer than anyone else.
10Foot’s own tag is usually monochrome, done quickly with a single spray can. Has his signature changed over the years? “Yeah, half my tag is circles but I can’t do them still,” he admits. “I never cared about it looking stylish, it’s just signing the guestbook.”
We pass through an underpass on the way to the station, and a driving licence and an ID card rain down from above. They are discards from a recent mugging, and as we come out of the underpass a boy in a balaclava on a high-powered E-Bike zooms away from us, down the pavement. Another example of the multiple layers of life stacked together on the margins of London’s biggest urban thoroughfare.
“There’s no chance of nailing this road’s meaning. You have to edge and edge and edge, that’s why I’ve walked the entire hard shoulder of that godforsaken road, and that’s why I made this big old ramble… I hope that someone understands it as being a disgustingly deep love of London.”
Derek Walmsley is a music journalist and editor based in London.
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