The funding from this artists bursary has allowed myself and Andrew to undertake a number of trips around the UK to initiate conversations with potential supporters and/or producers of ‘N scale’.
We have been having these conversations over the last few months and it has been a really interesting process. For me, as an artist who has generally worked in gallery or site-specific contexts, this process of developing a live project with so many different components is very new. So too is the process of thinking through how to sustain a work which will grow and change over a long duration. Consequently each conversation we’ve had has opened up different aspects of the work and its potential, particularly in terms of how it might relate to certain spaces or communities in the places we’ve visited.
One of the things that has really struck me as a result of these visits and conversations – aside from the specific relationship they have to the development of ‘N scale’ – is the extraordinarly rich physical legacy, in terms of buildings and archives, that there is in this country from the Victorian and Industrial era. And with this, the amazing work that people are doing to both protect and remember the literal fabric of these histories, at the same time as they are trying to give them a renewed life and purpose in the present, for their own communities and for national and international visitors.
Places such as ‘The Mining Institute’ in Newcastle, which is currently working on exciting plans for redevelopment of the building and the institute under the management of their new charity ‘The Common Room’ led by Liz Mayes. https://mininginstitute.org.uk http://www.thecommonroom.org.uk
And ‘The Piece Hall’ in Halifax, an exquisite former cloth trading hall from the late 18th century. Following HLF and Claderdale funded redevelopment the hall reopened just under a year ago, and it is a stunning place to see. We met with Helen Moore who is the curator there and she has many exciting plans for its cultural activities over the coming years. https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk
And of course there are many more established museums, libraries civic and industrial buildings that are are already exploring the legacy and history of the industrial era and house fantastic collections of material related to it, many of which we have been visiting or hope to visit. Places such as the People’s History Museum, Manchester, the Working Class Movement Library, Salford, M Shed and Cargo development in Bristol, Preston Museum, The Tetley, Leeds, and others.
Our intention with ‘N scale’ is that the physical and social specificity of these contexts in the present is linked with the present reality of industrial (in particular toy and textile industries) production in Asia, China and elsewhere.
These are not new links anyway as many of these former Industrial towns and cities are home to large Asian communities who moved to Britain because of skills they had in textile production.
‘N scale’ as a project wants to explore these histories in the context of the present, both locally and in relation to global industrial production and trade (particularly in relation to the toy and textile industries).
Consequently it has been very interesting and exciting to begin talking to many of these organisations about how the project might work with them; their buildings/spaces and communities.
