Embedded Files
Session Objective: to remember the devastation that can occur without adequately enforced environmental regulations
Learn: about the Grenfell Tower Fire through Tyrone Deans’ artwork on Remember Grenfell and accompanying artist statement.
Grenfell Tower is a twenty-four storey residential building in Ladbroke Grove, West London, consisting of 120 flats that were home to an estimated 400 people.
During the early hours of 14 June 2017, a fire broke out on the 4th floor of the tower, which housed mainly working class residents and was surrounded by affluent apartment complexes in London’s wealthiest borough, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
For many years, the residents of Grenfell and the wider Ladbroke Grove area have watched their long-standing, diverse and tight knit community gradually eroded by the effects of gentrification and social cleansing.
Rising living costs and a lack of housing and job opportunities in the local area are compounded by a local council long suspected of encouraging and colluding in the social cleansing of the neighbourhood.
This collusion is covert, taking the form of biased policies, practices and rulings which place far more importance on the needs and concerns of the borough’s wealthier residents, than those of its poorer inhabitants.
Nowhere is that collusion clearer than in the case of the fire at Grenfell Tower. Since 2013, the residents’ organisation Grenfell Action Group had repeatedly expressed concern about fire safety, saying in November 2016 that only a catastrophic fire would force the block’s management to adequately address fire precautions and maintenance of fire-related systems. The council failed to act on any of those concerns.
The local authority did however, find the money for the ‘regeneration’ of Grenfell Tower in 2016. This included the addition of exterior cladding, to match the aesthetic of the high-end, privately owned apartment complexes nearby.
In the aftermath of the fire, the cladding has been found to have acted as an accelerant, responsible for the fire’s rapid and deadly spread up and around the exterior of the building. Had the safety measures demanded by the residents been implemented, more lives could have been saved. Instead, the priority was to try and disguise the presence of social housing tenants living in the heart of London’s wealthiest borough.
Follow: the aftermath of the fire, as you examine particular issues through the coverage below.
Watch: this clip from Channel 4 capturing some of the voices from Grenfell Tower victims and families reflecting on the racism inherent in the events.
Witness: both the explicit interpersonal racism seen in various responses to the fire, and the anti-racist activism that has sprung from the events.
Teach: your classmates about a particular angle on the events by skimming your assigned article and explaining your key takeaways.
Why was the fire an example of institutional environmental racism?
How are race and class linked in this case?
How are the responses also institutionally racist?
Screen: this short film created by a Syracuse London student taking Professor Carol Nahra’s “Documenting Reality” class.
Review: this list of British Public Service Television Documentaries about Grenfell Tower from 2017 - 2024, compiled and annotated by Professor Carol Nahra.
Grenfell: The 21st Floor
BBC Newsnight 2017
Each floor of Grenfell Tower is a kind of microcosm of London – and of the tragedy that unfolded that terrible night in June. This is the harrowing story of the 10 adults and five children who lived on the 21st floor. Nine of them survived the fire. Six of them - and one unborn baby - perished. After weeks of research, Katie Razzall and producers Nick Menzies and Sara Moralioglu have pieced together their stories for the first time.
Grenfell
BBC One 2017
This documentary from Bafta-winning director Ben Anthony brings together multiple stories from the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy - the most devastating tower block fire in British history. It was made over the course of one year, with filming starting on the day after the fire.
The meticulously crafted film draws from hundreds of hours of interview, archive, social media content and observational footage to form a compelling, moving and lasting record of the events before, during and after the fire. It features intimate accounts from many of the men, women and children whose lives were forever intertwined and irrevocably changed that night - some of whom have never spoken publicly before.
Grenfell: The First 24 Hours
ITV 2017
Marking the first anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy, this one-off special focused on the survivors’ stories, eyewitness accounts and a firefighter, piecing together the timeline of the tragic events that unfolded. Sharron Ward negotiated access to sensitive and traumatized contributors, oversaw compliance, editorial policy, archive clearance and worked on location for all master interviews. The film aired to 1.7 million viewers.
Narrated by Sophie Okenado, Producer: Sharron Ward, PD: John Holdsworth, Executive Producer: Tayte Simpson. A Mentorn Media Production for ITV1.
4 out of 5 stars in The Telegraph: “So much pain, so much grief, so much trauma. Grenfell: The First 24 Hours was a hard-to-watch film, which, even-handed as it was, only served to reinforce the sense of outrage that such a tragedy could still happen in Britain in this day and age.”
The Fires that Foretold Grenfell
BBC Two 2018
This 60-minute documentary is the dramatic, haunting story of five fires that foretold the Grenfell disaster, told through the eyes of those directly involved. This vivid and moving film for BBC Two collates the memories of survivors, the bereaved, firefighters, safety experts and the politicians linked to five intensely fierce fire disasters that preceded Grenfell. This telling collection of interviews and archive footage shows the clear warnings that existed and could have predicted a Grenfell-type inferno happening in Britain.
Grenfell: Five Years, Five Stories
BBC Three Short film
Community and creativity connect the lives of five young people impacted by the Grenfell Tower fire. Their stories encompass football, music, dance, gardening and commemorative walks in forward-facing portraits of hope and strength five years on from the tragedy.
Grenfell
Channel 4 two part series, 2022
Powerful dramatisation based on words spoken at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, which sets out to discover why the devastating fire of 14 June 2017 happened.
I Was There: Grenfell
BBC Three 2024
Love, loss and a need for answers. Seven years on, we hear from survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire in London as they remember the fire which killed 72 people.
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