"I'm in a car, heading into a brand-new estate of new-builds looking for my friend Jason. The problem is I've got three friends called Jason and they all live somewhere on this estate. I drive over cobbled speed-bumps, anxiously trying to recognize one of the squares I'm sure Jason lives on. Although I've been here before, the squares all look the same and none has attached itself in my memory to each of the Jasons I know. I'm running late now and get out of the car and go on foot, thinking this will speed up the search. The regimented houses have small paths in front of them that run the length of the facades. I'm walking along one when another friend Simon and his wife spot me from one of the windows. I haven't seen Simon for years and they come to their door to greet me and let me in. Simon is a best-friend from school, someone I used to be very close to. Feeling obliged to enter his house, I soon find myself in his small bedroom on a laptop, doing a Google search for Jason. That's when I notice his younger brother also in the room, lost amongst a drum kit in one corner of the room. Simon and I don't have much to talk about, so he shows me a tune he's learnt to play on his new piano - his latest hobby. I don't recognize the music - it seems jumbled to me, a bit of a mess - but out of politeness I smile and tell him it's nice, that he's got talent. We don't really talk much and I carry on googling, though get distracted by typing in Jason Streatham and ending up on a modelling website for Russian girls. Simon comes back into the room and tells me he knows Jason, though with further description, I realize it's not the same Jason I know. He points me in the direction of his friend Jason's house, towards an equally non-descript housing development across a strip of fluorescent grass. Keen to leave, I head towards it knowing it's not the right Jason, but too resigned to look elsewhere."
A new-build near Rachel Grant's home, photographed last NovemberThe relationship between these dreams and the photographs makes me wonder which comes first? The images or the dreams? The place or the identity? Mishka
14 comments:
I'm following your blog with some interest.
To the question, place or identity? will you be asking residents this question ?
Interesting thought, what would your answer be?
ha ha !
use the old turn it onto the questioner routine.
If I lived in the area that the documentation process was taking part in, I might be drawn in and be tempted to answer.
However, I live some miles away.
My question is to do with documenting the residents thoughts and comments.
Do you engage with residents, within the documentary commission process ?
My own thoughts are that today, place and identity are very loosely connected. Identity is just as likely to be informed by people's interactions in cyberspace and their consumption of television programming as it is by their interactions with the physical world outside their front doors.
Which is why I'd say your own view is just as valid as say, mine, or someone living in Stoke. Stoke's landscape has been ravaged by global economic forces that have affected the landscapes of cities as varied as Manchester and Detroit. Which is why I don't think understanding the link between place, space and identity has to take place solely within the confines of North Staffordshire.
My question to you of which residents we should speak to is a genuine one and isn't meant to deflect attention away from the subject. I'm genuinely interested in who you think we should speak to. For example, to residents about to lose their home to a CPO? Or to someone about to move into a new luxury apartment? Then there's the majority, those who aren't experiencing such extreme displacements or new beginnings.
Having worked in quite a literal way before on other documentary projects, we were interested this time around to avoid the more obvious subjects of documentary photography. Which is why we're including here the voices of regeneration workers, travelling entertainers, artists, construction workers, and so on, on a subject which is often dominated in the local press by the views of disgruntled residents.
That's not to say their views aren't valid. On the contrary, it's simply that the local press are already doing a great job of representing those views and why repeat what we already know?
Mishka
I will take to answering in several stages.
I admire your global view of the place space identity concept. However, this project is specific to an area within England.
Is identity a fundamental feature of our individual personalities. If a place full of identities that cannot relate and connect via verbal and physical communication, the natural regression of the now is to communicate in the "e world". Thus making connections that are not possible within "real world". As we are here.
If an individual is happier to make connections in the "e world" instead of the "real world", then does it follow that there is an issue of emotional confidence within the "real world"
my response continues.
The process of regeneration becomes a subject that generates much emotional trauma. If an individual that has been unable to express their emotions for some time, suddenly sees their world about to change, they will shout about it. The developing companies may not have the time to listen to these out crys. Who does listen to them? Who lets them off load what they feel about their area. Where does this passion for an area become recorded ?
So who do I think you should talk to ? Any body passionate enough to speak out.
If you don't, how can the documentary process reflect what happened while the changes were being made.
If the residents don't have a voice, the regeneration process becomes a top down process. No wonder there is out cry. I feel you can't deny what is happening.
At this point, I'm now feeling a conversation in the "real world" would be more appropriate.
On the matter of disgruntled residents. Do you know why they are disgruntled ? If they were engaged with, talked to, taken to a place where they can understand what is happening, would they not become ambassadors for the project. They would be on the inside, being included in what is happening to where they live.
What other documentary projects have you done in the past ?
going to make a cup of tea now.
These are challenging questions you're asking, and it's probably worth saying at this point that we're not being commissioned to look at the quite specific issues you're referring to. This documentary commission instead aims to document the Place, Space, Identity programme of arts activities taking place in North Staffordshire.
Also, it's worth saying that several artists are exploring the concerns you're expressing about residents' voices not being heard. So far, we know that Rachel Grant's and Roger Brown's work are dealing specifically with the groups you mention. To Rachel and Roger, the views of residents who are experiencing what you're right to call trauma is integral to their work. In fact, one of the reasons for us not approaching those groups at the moment is for fear of duplicating the artists' work.
As other artists begin to develop and finalize their projects, I'm sure other work which deals with your concerns will come to light.
Finally, you seem very passionate about this subject and that of displacement and alienation. Is it a subject you've experienced first hand?
Mishka
There's not much point asking a question if it's not challenging.
Has this commission been very slow for you, waiting for work to finish so you can document it?
I'm a passionate guy, not much point being alive otherwise.
You ask about a first hand experience. The context of the question is confusing as it seems to refer to three things, I'm not sure which one to respond to in the first hand ness ness of the experience.
We expected during the planning of this project that the documenting of artists' work would be at the tail-end of the overall programme, so we were prepared for that.
In my experience, I'd say it's fair to say that those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of CPOs experience forced displacement and a strong sense of alienation. That's what I meant by my question. Is this something you've experienced first hand?
Mishka
The closest I got to a CPO was in the mid ninety's A supermarket was being talked about in the town. What we heard made cpo very attractive. The storey was 2 1/2 times value of the house being paid. If cpo had have happened, I wouldn't have minded.
From the language you use to describe cpo on this project, my reaction is no wonder the residents feel like they do, it sounds like it's not been very well explained and justified.
Who would respond well to:
"Oi you, you can't live here anymore, here's a bit of cash, deal with it"
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