Wayne Bartlett, upstairs in the roof with the archives
(photo Dianne Abbot.)
Of course I expected it to take the form of another handful of acquired houses to be saved from demolition, as Dave saw it, it looked to be going in a completely different direction. He told me that he was looking for something like an abandoned warehouse of disused factory,or something of that nature. The plot being then, for people to create their own spaces to house the work in or actually be the work. As oppose to moving into a preordained room or area and using that.
This gave me about three months to think about this in terms of creating a piece of work and as such, I rigidly stuck to it. I wanted to build a structure that could stand inside or out without necessarily being something that was specifically made to exist in either area. I wanted it to be a place where one could feel secure in fact quite cut off and removed from the outside whilst in fact being quite vunerable and accessible to anyone standing immediately outside.This was a structure that was, to me, much more to do with “Relocation” as a project than “Radio active” as a show concerned with working practices within the area.
In the end after a fair bit of deliberation I ended up outside of the factory in the large fairly well covered "yard." As I dreamed this project up I didn't know that a large show was being planned.
One of Peter Hadfields many signs that entertained the tailback of rushhour traffic going home in the evening.
(photo: D.A.)
One of Peter Hadfields many signs that entertained the tailback of rushhour traffic going home in the evening.
(photo: D.A.)
Link to Dave Haden's flickr site:
Youve read the book, now see the film
The basic team that held keys, slept there on occasion, roughly knew what was going on and helped with basic maintenance work.
Unbricking some unsafe downstairs windows.
(photo: D.A.)
One of Peter Hadfields windows
More part of a movement.
A group of artists of various ability and discipline took over a factory and made it a going concern.
Unfortunately, the whole thing wasn't taken as far as it should have gone.
THRONE ROOM, X-RAY FACTORY, SMETHWICK 04
This is my throne room, designed in wood and metal for all to sit in equality regardless of anything - 7 thrones: seven equal noble occupants.
Gregoire, clearing a patch of grass for John Hammersley with the start of the throne Room in the background.
Looking down from the top of the huge metal stairs leading down from the upstairs hall. There were so many of them that they contravened health and safety regulations. - a theme that was to rpeat itself with monotonous regularity, up to the point where I am amazed we managed to stay open for so long.
Greg De Pasac on the roof - there was a big drop on either side.
(photo D.A)
RADIOACTIVE
The Buccaneer
Placed by Tony and Claire Appleby's Seaside Shack
John Hammersley with the fire in the centre of the yard.
photo: D.A.
Entrance to Dianne Taylors kitchen.
How to eat with a knife and fork
.
Kitchen pretending to be an office
Claire - just finished a mug rack.
Pete Hadfield x Emma Chetcuti
Dianne
This is a note I wrote to Dave Pollard at the end of the Radio active event.
I wrote it because at that time it was simply impossible to talk to him for ant more than five minutes - anywhere!
As it was, his reaction was that he was after rent for studios from the place and in that case would find it hard to accommodate me (setting examples etc.) I was less than pleased!
Next year we had the first live/work project - necessity being the mother of invention.
Working space at the Factory.
At present, I have a studio at Tindle St, it’s a pleasant place but I’m hardly ever there, I use it basically for storage. I seem to do my “bigger” work in places like the factory or Margaret St.
What with talk about people moving in to studio space at the factory, I have been weighing up the pros and cons of what such a move would mean to me.
What I would need would be a water proofed and semi-insulated hut out in the back. It would need to be big enough to stack bits of towers I have previously made, or maybe bits of things that I could bring out on future occasions to rebuild or re-install. It would also need some shelving space and a small work surface. Also, some sort of electricity point for radio, light, electric drill type of thing. It would be used as a base.
I would be thinking of slowly adding things to it, so that in time it became a bit of a spectacle in its own right.
This is the crunch bit – My present studio is paid for from odd decorating type jobs, I am wondering If it would be possible to move into the factory and actually cover the “rent” by doing “maintenance” work around the place. Which, basically, is something I would be prepared to do anyway.
THE HALL UPSTAIRS
Brown, building a trapdoor over the entrance below, (that we opened up the following year)
Hadfield surveys a very big leak.
THE OTHER HALL ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STAIRS
Tony Appleby, after the ceiling came down, with the old and very dangerous stairs behind.
Ian, with an anarchist A
I replaced what seemed to be half the windows upstairs.
Julian and Pollard in a very side room.
Tony and Claire moving into the room they inhabited for a while
GROTTO
After the show "Radioactive" in the autumn, we decided to immediately kick in under our own steam and under the guidance of Emma Chetcuti who was working at "the pUBLIC" at that time we put a show together called "Grotto" in time for Christmas for very little money.
We transformed the downstairs interior of the place and put hundreds of cheap Christmas trees in the large semi exposed area.
Unfortunately, and largely due to Midlands Today who we foolishly contacted for public exposure we ran into a lot of health and safety problems, meaning that we couldn't really invite the public in during the hours of darkness. Which was of course when the show looked at its best.
A Christmas Bonfire
The christmas tree forest started on the left, inside there was Greg immaculately dressed up as a blue goblin, suddenly appearing with a loud scream and frightening the pants of the groupes of visiting school children (they loved it).
I mounted a complementary show of small collages which I felt were bright enough to complement the festive air of the whole thing. Being adjacent to the Dickensian section of the show
This was the cover for the folder that I kept all the painted collages in.
Link to Facebook album:
"As I was saying"
Polyeidetic, seen here in another show at the Chamelion Gallery in Walsall. - this is a far better photo.
Peter hadfield and I built a multy stained glass window- give it a festive feel
Link to fifteen other images of some of the collages I exhibited:
THE WINDOWS ROOM
Silver Locomotive and models
Pastiche of Joe's box.
Illuminated central column.
Diannes window box of Macdonalds free toys
Dave Pollard's tilting door, leading to a hut of mirrors.
Tiny, smoking wax man, made by Michelle.
Orange by Alan Cheezeman.
THE LAST DINNER
An Idea that Peter Hadfield and I put together in the old clocking in cupboard, a lovely place for an installation, used by Helen Grundy during "Radio active"
I had been saving up broken wine glasses for ages
Just visible - one of Hadfields floating bluebottles
Pork Pie
LIVE/WORK 1, X-RAY FACTORY, 05
Application design for the first Live/Work project in the X-Ray factory, Smethwick, 2004.
It bears no resemblance to what I finally ended up making.
Which was in fact a life size punch and Judy stage, in this shot it is not yet complete.
Not award winning, but then again, not bad for a couple of hours work.
On top of the roof there are my homages to Miro, cut out at great heat with a plasma cutter. (no home should be without one)
Looking great in my back garden at present
The backstage hanging which later became a banner entitled "Maze".
Front of left tower
Looking down to stage from left tower
Back of the stage. Ornamental painting of goldfish for no apparent reason, I wanted to spend more time on the back of the stage - it was, after all a live work situation.
I was under the impression that the whole thing was due to carry on going, rather than just stop one day. As such, I suppose I was working on a bit too grandiose a scale.
At the end of it , I turned round to Claire Wearne (what with all the rain, and said -"I should have made a little rain hut on stilts")
A good general layout of "my" corner of the factory.
I dont have any pictures of how the sun used to shine on the far wall in the afternoon in different "slats" as it shone through the broken roof.
To the left is Vanessa's hooped igloo. In the middle is Peter Hadfield's waste paper construction, comprised of thousands and thousands of paper balls of unwanted excess verbiage from the pUBLIC.
To the right was part of Bobby Birds caravan extension, which housed a set-up which mimicked all surrounding sounds.
Again, a shot from in front of the stage, in the forground is Pete's bath which he heated up and jumped into on the opening, In the background is Hanna's scaffolding, containing plant-life and to the right ( and in white) the corner of Joe Johnsons night and day house.
From inside the stage.
Around the corner from the main bit of the show was the cubicle where people used to clock in. It was like half a room with a little square window. The room housed my tent city very well and was only visible as you stood directly outside the window. A bit of a shock.
The thing came from Thailand it was a carnival like tent-town on the edge of some waters, it had an
un-earthly feel about it, a bit like a place for dead people to rest in.
It became a hole in the midst of a series of portraits of the people involved in the project.
You didnt realise it was there untill you passed and it jumped out at you.
I couldnt have hoped for a better situation!
I made the tent city during the middle of the summer at Shipping Hill in Pembrokeshire, where my family lives. It was quite a colourful time for me. The above is from a tree I came across in S.E. Turkey where people had continuously festooned the dead shell of a tree with hundreds of bits of toilet paper and the like.
It now lives in Narberth pottery.
- and
"Two Trains Running" from a song by Lowell George - Little Feet, that I gave my friend Tom Wiersma for his wedding present. (well the song did affect us both!)
I added these two as they were very much part and parcel to what I was making at the time and in fact would not have happened had it not been for the Punch and Judy Stage.
APNA LIFE
The last show
Put together by Parminder Jutpa with Vanley Burke.
I was asked to sit in with a big corner.
When I knew that we were finally leaving, I walked round with a cheap camera and snapped the empty areas we had left.
Top of the stairs where Gregoire slept ( boarded up)
Browns corner.
Downstairs ceiling.
Empty window arch downstairs.
Front Door
.
