The Grove by Nick Vieweg

Fažana / Main square / 22 / 9 / 2022 / Film

Nick Vieweg is a twenty-sev­en-years old skate­boarder, Sony VX-1000 enthu­si­ast and dog lov­er cur­rently resid­ing in Lon­don — a place that is also home to The Grove, formerly an aban­doned bar, the pave­ment slab of the car park next to which was spon­tan­eously reclaimed by skate­boarders through­out the span of Cov­id restric­tions and lock­downs. Recyc­ling an “eye­sore” of a dis­used street corner from a rel­at­ively sketchy hangout into a foun­tain of inclus­ive and com­munity-fed­er­at­ing dynam­ics, it is a fas­cin­at­ing example of loc­als nat­ur­ally cur­at­ing their liv­ing space by turn­ing null or even tox­ic into resource­ful, neg­at­ive into pos­it­ive. People recu­per­at­ing a piece of land in a sorry state, over­grown with weeds and detrit­us (out of which for kids to build the first make­shift obstacles), stuck in timely uncer­tainty and grant­ing it a new, posthum­ous yet ever-so-lively pur­pose — only to, then, at the expec­ted and dreaded end of the day, be con­fron­ted by admin­is­trat­ive realities. 

Nick’s eponym­ous film The Grove is the per­fect, twenty-minute long doc­u­ment­ary insight into the chal­lenges and battles the team faced against the people who wanted to redevel­op the area.