ourparentsfacesinours

A trip back to Coventry to attend my aunt’s funeral was just sad. Visits to various cemeteries was grounding as ever – the past rushing up to the present day. I loved that my dad’s neighbour, whom I have never met said he saw the face of Pauline and Tony, my parents, in mine  Player Piano the latest exhibition at The Artstation in Saxmundham was thoughtfully awesome https://theartstation.uk/exhibition/player-piano/   The range of work and the depth of research and thinking embedded within them was impressive. I particularly liked the oddly disturbing sculpture by Kumbirai Makumbe, the video piece by Catinca Malaimare and the small delicate tiles by Kara Chin. It was great to see such innovative work down the road. the onto screens –  How to blow up a pipeline explained how to blow up a pipeline. Escape room: Tournament of Champions was basically about a tournament based in an escape room for champions. Deep into Succession which is about so many things but mainly the venal nature of power. Ghosted the usual but done well. The Guard was witty and irreverent. AKA was standard gansta double double cross material. Death Roulette had a lot going on but in so many directions. 23 walks attempted to tackle some stuff we don’t talk about, not bad. photo of two sisters my mum, Pauline and her sister Diane, Di.

 

changingthepast

 my aunt flossie's house

 the house I was born in 

 the house I grew up in 

a visit back to what used to be Coventry - my past has changed - part of the ongoing documentation of psychogeographical erosion.

thesmellofthepast

popped over to Coventry to see parents after a day in the lab at Cambridge https://unfoldingthinking.blogspot.co.uk/ - the folding bike is so excellent and allows you get around under your own steam which is especially positive after being at the mercy of 'public transport'. Journeys are cut down, there is a sense of engagement with the city and landscape as you move through it, it's also faster than walking and sometimes faster than a car when getting to work! As a young person growing up in Coventry I watched all the houses I had lived in be demolished, the places I played in be knocked down and levelled for what appeared to be no specific purpose and all the schools I went to turned into either a car park or business park but I hadn't witnessed them be constructed. As I cycled back to the station this afternoon through the centre of town I realised that I can now add a number of buildings to the list of 'buildings-you-watched-be-built-have-a-life-and-are-subsequently-knocked-down-and-then-a-building-is built-on-top-of-it'.

But The Herbert Art Gallery is still there and has the most extraordinary reliefs on the side of the building by Walter Ritchie - Man's Struggle to control the world outside himself and Man's Struggle to control the world inside himself. I can remember when they were originally sited under a walkway inside a structure in the shopping precinct facing each other with a fountain in the middle and so slightly obscured but they are so wonderfully visible in the new location http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/midland-montage-26081959-coventry-sculpture/MediaEntry/36523.html In a spare room in my parents' house I came across some structures from my childhood that take me directly to the present with my work in Cambridge. A series of wooden puzzles made by my Uncle Reg who was both married to my Auntie Floss and a Pattern Maker at the GEC. They are part of one of those memories from the past that somehow post rationally enable you to make sense of the present. In my mind he always appeared to be uniquely other, sitting in his chair at a dark round wooden table, smoking revealing mysterious handmade tactile objects which defied logic. I never could return them to their complete original state after taking them apart. The smell of them was also of another time,  a musky wax polished solid hard wooden time of lace curtains and front rooms that were only used for special occasions.

specialstimetravel

a recent trip to Coventry threw up some interesting moments - among them standing where I once saw the Specials in what was Tiffanys - a night club but it's now the Library and the market seemed smaller.