Three new ways to really understand Grenfell

Here are my personal thoughts on three cultural events - a play in 2023, an art exhibition held this week, and a Netflix documentary due out next week - which I believe can deepen our understanding of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and just remind us all associated with property, construction and the built environment why justice and change, though 'painful' to the industry, is still urgently needed.

** Trigger warning: Some of the pictures, video trailers and content below include graphic scenes of the fire and distressing first-hand testimony from victims and survivors. **

I was privileged to join a large group of Grenfell residents, friends and families, activists, supporters and artists at an extraordinary art exhibition and community event at Tate Britain on Monday evening.

Sadly, it was a one-night-only event. And let me just say right now, up front, I think it should be a travelling exhibition, and it should be on display at the Building Centre and every industry trade show from now on. ALL of us involved in the construction industry should see it.

I was there as a guest of one of the artists - Hannah Mansell, a fantastic painter, sculptor and stained glass artist, and also probably the country's leading campaigner and expert in fire door safety.

Hannah was our client and primary spokesperson when we ran Fire Door Safety Week, and she now runs her own technical consultancy advising on product development, safety and regulatory compliance and operational excellence for many leading door manufacturers, as well as running the UK's fire door think tank. She is also a master craftswoman and cabinet maker, and one of the most creative people we have the luck to work with.

The exhibition included several of Hannah's pieces, including the famous 'Weeping Angel' painting which Hannah carried aloft as a placard during several of the Grenfell silent walks.

There were also artworks, installations, films, photos and poems from a large number of individual artists, schools and community groups. As a body of work, it was overwhelmingly bold, heartbreaking, loving, angry, defiant, beautiful and hopeful, all at once.

The event included a reading of the names of everyone who died in the fire on 14 June 2017, 72 seconds of silence as we honoured the lives lost, and a moving recitation of verses from the Quran. There were creative workshops, art therapy sessions, poetry readings, films and a quiet remembrance room where people could pay tribute to loved and lost ones.

Walking out of the Tate afterwards, into the gentle evening bustle of central London, I felt like I had stepped into an alternative universe. For a short time I had seen a tiny, tiny fraction of the tight bonds and emotional reality of the Grenfell community. Its powerful, visceral impact, trauma, rage and humanity made me realise once again how inadequate the political and industry response has been so far.

Please do take a moment to look at the images below, and try to zoom in on the poems and other texts. They're just a small selection of remarkable artworks, but I'm sure they will help you too understand Grenfell in a way that a dozen Inquiry reports could never do.

If you're visiting Tate Britain, also look out for Chris Ofili's 'Requiem' mural across the walls of the North Staircase. It is a beautiful homage to the lost souls at Grenfell, and particularly to Khadija Saye, an artist and activist who died in the fire.

There is another thing all of us should also see: the National Theatre's production of 'Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors', a play by Gillian Slovo. You can still catch it on the National Theatre at Home service.

I can't help but feel it is incredibly important for younger people to see this, because for many of them, Grenfell is actually before their time. I realised this when I was talking to a group of architectural students recently - "We don't really know much about it" was what they told me, and that was shocking. Please show this play to every cohort of architectural students, every construction apprentice, every new recruit to a social landlord...

A team from LMC went to see the production in July 2023. We were speechless afterwards. It still remains the most powerful and memorable theatrical performance I have ever seen in my life.

The production is a verbatim play, taking real words from the testimony of residents at the heart of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, interlinked with the actual words from witnesses at the Inquiry which ran from 2017 and published its final report on 4 September 2024. The play powerfully brings to life a series of interviews conducted with a group of survivors and bereaved, and reveals the impact of the multiple failures that led to a national disaster, asking: how do we stop this ever happening again?

Honestly, this is one of those cultural moments that will change your understanding and attitudes to Grenfell forever.