HOLDING COURT

During the summer, London’s basketball courts were some of the first free public spaces to reopen post-lockdown.

Scattered across the capital, each one is a unique, self-contained island – home to an impressive cast of regulars, for whom community is everything.

London’s basketball courts are worlds unto themselves. They are islands, an archipelago of concrete rectangles, spread out across the capital. Each one has its own energy and diverse cast, which usually reflects the economic, racial and social dynamics of the area it resides in.

At the beginning of summer, as the city’s lockdown restrictions began to lift, the courts were some of the first free spaces to reopen. Following a period of prolonged isolation, they allowed young people to come together; to move and breathe again. Each court, while totally unique, is home to a similar kind of community: one that paints a broad picture of diversity and coexistence, reflecting the true face of the