A Journey Through Space

Recently, I attended Ludi Club, an intergenerational initiative curated by a creative outlet named Home Radio for people across generations to play Ludi (commonly known in the West as Ludo) together. Home Radio- whose modus operandi is to champion local talents, archival stories and dancefloor sounds- is run by Shari Mclawrence, a 23-year old interior stylist and DJ. She is obsessed with the intersection of social justice and urban planning because each of us longs for and deserves a place that we can call home. Sometimes our home is a house that we personally own, sometimes it is a flat bestowed to us by the local council and sometimes our home is not a building at all but an ambience found in the company of those we cherish most.

One of Shari’s homes is her grandparents’ house, where passionate bouts of Ludi demark joyous family gatherings. This is typical of large Caribbean families. Ludi Club is thus a celebration of a heritage which is shared ubiquitously amongst the Caribbean diaspora. The goal of the game is for players to bring four totems to the game’s fictional ‘home’, keeping in theme with Home Radio’s motif.

On the day of the Ludi Club, I had been travelling across Britain’s South coast from early morning. I had four objects to pick up and take home. It felt then, that I was partaking in my own real life version of Ludi before the club had actually begun.

At 11am, I arrived at Sevenoaks Railway Station in Kent, a suburban realm that is devoid of excitement or fanfare. I closed my copy of the Trading Game by Gary Stevenson, which posits- amongst many things- that Britain's middle class are disappearing. Then, I glanced at a woman in VEJA trainers carrying some sort of M&S fruit juice; a man exiting his Porsche; and a child reading a copy of Dickens’ David Copperfield. If the middle class are to disappear, these people will be the first to go.

I picked up my phone charger from a music studio I had been recording at in Sevenoaks the month prior- the first item. Then, I got in a taxi to head to a youth offenders’ institute in Rochester where I was running a teacher training workshop. Common sense would lead one to believe that a taxi from Sevenoaks to Rochester would be quick given that they are both in Kent. Google Maps concurred, insisting that it would be a seamless 35-minute journey. 1hr10mins later, both were proved wrong and I painfully ended up paying a £100 fee for a journey I presumed would cost me £15.

I collected an evaluation form from work- the second item- and then headed to the Prince Philip Maritime Collection Centre in Greenwich where I had left a music stand from a gig almost a year prior- my third item. On the way there, I spoke with a co-worker who explained to me that she’s frustrated because the website she makes AI beats on is claiming intellectual property over the K-POP and Afrobeat albums she made on it. I am not Muslim but internally, I exclaimed a loud ‘Astagfirullah’. How did we become so estranged from our own humanity that we confuse cheap imitation with authenticity? Our bodies are temples and our spirits are reflections of God’s image. When we forsake our own capabilities and outsource it to AI, what are we saying of God? What are we saying of ourselves? I oscillate between amused chuckles and bemused shudders.

I took the wrong train from Rochester, ending up in Stratford, and decided to make use of the detour by buying flowers and pretzels for Shari- who I may have forgotten to mention is my girlfriend. Oscillating indecisively between roses and lilies felt merrier than the existential misery my co-worker left me with. I ventured to Greenwich, and made my way from there to Peckham.

I arrived at the Bussey building, where Shari was hosting her Ludi Club, at 7pm. This warehouse complex has been a bastion of South London art for almost two decades. She was hosting her event in Jumbi specifically, an Afro-Caribbean hi-fi bar situated at its rear. Arriving there filled me with a deep realisation of this moment’s grandiose importance. Shari was championing a resilient Black British tradition in one of the most resilient homes of modern Black British culture. Campaign posters sprawled across the warehouse walls, I was made to reflect on the inconsiderately greedy plans for gentrification that were casting a long shadow over Peckham’s future. This resilience felt needed now more than ever. I handed her the flowers to celebrate this.

My friend Miro came during the event to deliver me my USB. He had taken it to place a copy of Logic Pro- the music production software- on it. I spent most of the night toggling through my laptop with him to ensure that we could download it efficiently. This, having been the fourth of my items to collect, constituted the completion of my tour. In Ludi terms, I was home. By the looks of my surrounding- warm, energetic and playful- this was indeed the case. There were so many bodies in the place, which flourished in warm red mood lights under a wooden shelter. It felt like a tropical veranda.

I had to go on MC duties since Shari had lost her voice during tireless preparations for the event. I conjured up musings about the Windrush generation’s contribution to Britain and the importance of communal leisure to which everybody cheered.

I was no longer needed by the end of the night and decided to finally sit down with my friend Barakat and Shari’s grandmother for a Ludi match. I was intent on winning. My competitive optimism, tactile shrewdness and Machiavellian determinism felt like a recipe for success. I measured my chances against Barakat, an unfocussed chatterbox who had never played the game in her life, and Shari’s grandmother- who although a veteran of the game- seemed to be a docile woman, full of a peaceful friendliness that I could craftily exploit for my own gain.

Confident in myself, I (a Christian), shook hands with Barakat (a Muslim) and agreed that if either of us lost, we would have to pay £2.50 to the other despite the fact that gambling is a sin in both our religions.

I’ll spare the details of the game, but the outcome was that Shari’s grandmother won. It was revealed that this was not the docile old woman I believed her to be: this was a merciless assassin who skilfully debilitated her opponents with the calculated stealth of a Viet Cong fighter. Like US soldiers obliviously stricken by Vietnamese booby traps, Barakat and I were left brutally paralysed and helpless for much of the game.

We shook hands for a second time after we lost, not in agreement at anything, but in celebration of the fact that through losing the game, our bet had been annulled in a way, allowing us to feel as if our souls had been preserved from the wrath of the God of Abraham (whom we allegedly both serve).

We enjoyed this newfound salvation against a backdrop of reggae, dancehall, soukouss and highlife records woven intricately by a cast of stellar vinyl selectors. Around us, guests were either feasting on complex concoctions from Jurkish (Jumbi’s Jamaican-Turkish fusion restaurant) or stuffing their faces with Costco cake in commemoration of Home Radio’s 1st birthday. In one corner of the room, a friend of mine named Jaden, who spends most of his waking hours in his bedroom manifesting bizarre contraptions through his 3D printer, was surrounded by a host of awe-inspired artists and entrepreneurs who marvelled at his latest invention (a scaly plastic case, which looks like a handbag when closed, but like the jaws of a dinosaur when opened- it’s an expression of his family heritage, he claims). In the other corner of the room, a philosophy student, her father and two strangers played a game of Jengo (also known as Lenga), a sporadic innovation made to exhaust the pieces of a Ludo board and the blocks of a Jenga tower simultaneously.

Engaging with these myriad experiences all at once, I learnt anew of the iridescently complex nature of humanity. It wasn’t merely that many things were happening at once, but that each of these things were powerfully symbolic: the reclamation of the Bussey building by an intergenerational- mostly working class- community was a quiet, yet sincere statement against the rampant gentrification Peckham is currently facing; the DJ’s role as humble servant of the communal mood rather than bedazzled performer championed a sense of non-hierarchy which encouraged leisure and interactivity rather than hedonistic over-excitement (something much too prevalent in London’s creative scene); the open-spiritedness of this non-hierarchy spurred us all to engage with each other as valuable equals; it was this open-spirited mood that spurred Jaden to communicate his craft so passionately to his fellow ludi-goers, promoting a mode of innovation that comes to fruition through collective dialogue; the Ludi boards (custom made by Shari) were examples of the way in which this collectivist innovation has been passed on from generation to generation in Caribbean culture since her father taught her to make them and his father taught him; the exemplification of this cultural heritage was a reminder to hold reverence for the Windrush generation who have been so painfully disregarded by the United Kingdom, a land whose culture and infrastructure they have been the bedrock of.

To say that I learnt all of these truths concurrently whilst doing nothing but play a game of Ludo with some family and friends sounds like the retelling of a hallucinogenic experience. This reminds me why, for a brief period, I used to refer to my own events series- through which I curate moments of togetherness and self-reflection through music and the arts- as psychedelic.

The suffix ‘delic’ means ‘to make clear’ in Ancient Greek and ‘psyche’ means ‘spirit’ or ‘mind’ in the same language. Although I have never used and will never condone the use of psychedelic substances, the legacy of pyschedelia and the images of surrealism that it produces correspond with the nature of spaces like Ludi Club. Its myriad moments- all too overwhelming to experience at once, yet wholesomely awe-inducing- constitute an experience that appeals to each of the senses and provides new realisations through them. The surreal image of community, resilience and activism experienced at Ludi Club challenged the parameters of the audience’s reality and encouraged them to venture beyond it for truth. It was a mobilisation of leisure towards consciousness (the space in which our morality finds its home).

The imagery of this reminds me of the biblical story of Saul on the road to Damascus, wherein a surreal vision of Christ’s image reforms Saul, the sinner, into Paul, the apostle. Whilst Paul’s vision was much more divine, its miraculous occurrence follows the schema posited here: sensory experience stimulates moral realisation. Though, it long precedes psychedelia, which attempts to pursue the expansion of human consciousness that religious figures like Paul experienced (and documented) without actually engaging with the practices that allowed for this expansion to be sustained1. Psychedelia is not eternal. The only benefit of using the term in this instance is that it corresponds to the fleeting nature of third spaces. They are temporary highs that only last for a few hours at a time due to the precarious impermanence of space in today’s economy.

The term for places that provide opportunities for leisure, but that exist outside the strict confines of home and work, is ‘third place’2. Examples of traditional third places include churches, bars and barbershops. But places are permanent. Spaces by contrast are modular- constructed by public consensus and shared beliefs- offering them a nomadic facet that benefits curators like Shari and I3. Their inherent idealism offers them the capability for consciousness to be mobilised and holistic practices to be established. In fact, sociologists are now prescribing a new term to the community spaces that invoke this idealism most emphatically: ‘fourth spaces’4. These are characterised by intentional curation, cultural awareness and principled design, crafting moments for gathering and contemplation within the confines of 21st century precariousness. Supper clubs, salon nights, painting sessions and chess clubs can all be fourth spaces.

Whilst I described my events as psychedelic third spaces, they align well with the conception of fourth spaces (a term which will be much easier to tote in casual conversation). The primary issue with this is that the term is too general- not encapsulating the multi-sensory facet through which revelation occurs within psychedelia. This is important because it acknowledges a design philosophy that distinguishes some of the spaces within this movement and it hints at the possibility of a shared epistemology for those who interact in these spaces. This design philosophy impinges upon the ability of attendees to experience a journey through curated places- specifically a journey that catalyses some sort of Damascene conversion by the night’s end- which will naturally be a rare effect reserved only for those in the most intentional and philosophically driven of environments.

The Superego- the part of the psyche that, according to Sigmund Freud, corresponds with the surrounding environment- dictates the morality of the individual. It is well documented by Freud and many other thinkers that the Superego can be manipulated through a management of the public’s mood5. The nature of third spaces- both environmental and moralistic- is that they naturally harness this potential to bring people together. The nature of psychedelic third spaces is that they mobilise this togetherness conscientiously: by etymological definition they make spirits clear- like Barakat and I after we lost our game of Ludi.