RiverText: I have been here before (Bookman Old Style)
by Jacqueline Wylie
For the Chorlton Arts Festival in 2006 I positioned 3 text pieces in various sites around Chorlton Ees. For one piece I placed bricks with letters painted on into the bed of Chorlton Brook that read FLUX.
These three pieces were made in response to Swine Flu and the real threat that wild bird would be culled on the Ees as they were throughout Europe at the time. I had visited Turkey that year and was aware of the absence of birds, very strange.
For this year’s Festival I am revisiting this by placing a new text piece in the brook as a response to the current Swine Flu outbreak. Chorlton Brook flows on regardless to what is going on around, if it could speak it might say “I have been here before.”
I am painting individual letters on bricks (using eco friendly, biodegradable paint) and intend to place them in the bed of the brook so that they can be read from a nearby bridge. “Jacqueline Wylie has placed a concrete poem in Chorlton Brook. It emerges from the flowing water as a comment on recent events such as Pandemic Flu and Regime change. If the brook could speak, what would it say?”
Its April 2011, the bricks have arrived in my studio, the result of a scavenge around the corner from the studio on Chapel Town Street. Shush, don’t tell anybody! I have sourced some lovely eco friendly paint and now I need to finish producing my templates and get painting.
The previous peice I did “FLUX” was only 4 bricks, this time I’m using 19 so this will be a serious logistical nightmare. I now have a slight but persistent worry – how will I move them all? Individually they are quite heavy. Also the banks of the river have been built up recently so getting into the river will be more of a challenge. I may get very wet!
Don’t you find this happens a lot making work? You get all excited about an idea, talking it up in a proposal, and then you have to make it happen!
