Dreams On Wheels

Dreams On Wheels Exhibition Opening London City Hall September 12, 2009 at 12:34

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is funny. He’s a natural entertainer and would-be stand-up comic. His comedic skills were on show when he co-hosted the Dreams on Wheels Exhibition Launch with the Ambassador for Denmark, His Excellency Birger Riis-Jørgensen, and joked that it’s always raining in the Danish capital, whereas in London it’s dry 94% of the time. I’m not sure where he gets his facts from, his tongue-in-cheek style of speech delivery means you don’t have to believe much of what he says. After all, he is a politician.

Dreams on Wheels: Cycling Culture for Urban Sustainability is an exhibition about cycling in London and Copenhagen. It’s free to visit and it ran at London City Hall, from 1 September to 2 October 09. According to Danish Embassy project manager Inge Henningsen, other versions have already been shown in Copenhagen, Canberra, Edinburgh, Riga, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo and Moscow.

Boris, as we all know, is an avid cyclist. He was almost run over recently, but still cycles to work. He says that his enthusiasm for cycling was born in Copenhagen in 1992 and that while 40% of journeys in Copenhagen are made by bicycles, here in London it’s only 1.5%. That’s a shame, and he’s working hard on making it 5% ‘in short order’.

In summer 2010, London will get two cycling superhighways (there are currently 13 in Copenhagen). He asks people to put their hands up if they came by cycle. A few hands go up. By bus? More. By car? The BBC camera crew put their hands up - cue for Boris to poke fun at them.

The Danish Ambassador to London, His Excellency Birger Riis-Jørgensen, said he’d cycled both to the exhibit and to other engagements that day, saving 2 kilograms of carbon emissions and using up 400 Calories. His wife, Karin Riis-Jørgensen, a lawyer and, until recently, Member of the European Parliament, is wearing her cycling gear. The Ambassador quotes her reply to the offer of a chauffeur ‘I’ve left mine chained to a lamp-post’. He says that Londoners are ‘nice to each other’ in traffic, and that cycling around the city shouldn’t be too much of a problem for that reason. He has a point: people in London are generally polite. They may not talk to you on the tube but they do say sorry a lot in supermarkets as they push their trolleys around the aisles, narrowly missing you.

The Ambassador presented the Mayor with a gift - a cycling helmet with the flag of Great Britain all over it - calling it ‘Brainware for smart people’. And Boris is smart. Under that flop of blond hair, he knows what he’s doing. He’s not afraid to make fun of himself because he gets people to like him and gets things done that way. Speeches from City Hall Director for Transport Policy Kulveer Ranger (who was just back from a trans-continental charity motorbike ride) and from exhibition curator Thomas Ugo Ermacora followed. Boris lingered briefly before being ushered off by his PA.

This London showing of Dreams on Wheels - with some intriguing bikes including one made from bamboo - leads up to the next major United Nations Climate Change Conference hosted in Copenhagen from 7-18 December 2009.

Dreams on Wheels is curated by Etikstudiowith photographic contributions by Mikael Colville-Andersen; organised by the Embassy of Denmark, London in partnership with the Greater London Authority; supported by Transport for London and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Written by Greg Tallent, Greater London Authority for The Fringer Report
Photography Copyright Greater London Authority