About This Event

The Republic documents the story of Stokes Croft, portraying a diverse community that dares to defy the cold winds of corporate power. Filmed over six years, with access to twenty years of personal archives, this compelling story of our times recounts the fight by locals to retain some control over their destiny in an increasingly monocultural world, their greatest challenge looms as developers target this quarter and ready their wrecking balls. Christopher Chalkley is a key figure in the cultural redefinition that in recent years has reshaped Stokes Croft, Bristol’s self-proclaimed cultural quarter, guarded by a legendary work by Banksy. Founder of the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC) and advocate of a radical vision of urban space as a common good, Christopher Chalkley is a philosopher, an anarchist, an artist, and erstwhile wholesaler of China ware. Chalkley embodies a practice in which aesthetics, activism and micro economy are interwoven in a coherent form. His work brings together political vision, public intervention, opposition to property speculation and the construction of an alternative civic identity grounded in collective self‑determination. Through murals, symbolic campaigns and cultural initiatives, Christopher Chalkley’s PRSC constitutes a Foucauldian heterotopia, as well as a cradle of critical thought, in which art operates as an instrument of conflict and negotiation. Chalkley thus stands at the intersection of political militancy and cultural entrepreneurship, outlining a model of urban resistance capable of making flowers bloom from the rubble. He was a landlord of the legendary Jamaica Street Studios, a building purchased with partners in 1995 and converted into affordable artists’ studios; he rejoiced when, in 2025, the artists of Jamaica Street Studios succeeded in becoming the owners of their own studios.

Frequently asked questions

Staying overnight?

Hotels within walking distance of Islington Mill.