I am often on the Ritherdon site during a periods of maintenance. Maintenance is taking place all the time, however there is a reasonably regular spot on Friday afternoons when the bigger jobs get done after the factory closes for production.
One Friday afternoon I was fortunate enough to witness a job that takes very rarely, which is the replacement of insulation on the large powder-coating stove. The image above was taken from inside the oven- the heat was turned off at this point!- and documented the first time light had entered the stove space in what I am told is probably 25 years. Many thanks to Arron for letting me photograph him on the job.
These incidental encounters are just that- only really possible to encounter by simply being present in the right place at the right time. This requires allowing myself some time to simply walk around and witness operations without too much prior intent. I have come to realise that this almost seems an unnatural thing to do and I have to talk myself off the ledge of feeling like I am wasting time. Maybe this is due to the efficient nature of the factory environment, the responsibility and inherent motivation to get the most value out of public money funding the project, or simply a habit of always working towards some specific end. These feelings/habits tell me I should always have my hands on something in order to be ‘being productive’, however I am beginning to understand that in more ways than one, simply being present is the exactly the right thing to do. It allows for the soaking in of individual incidental occurrences but also a kind of stepping back from the mass of individual movements to witness the manufacturing system as a whole. How processes lead to one and other and departmental actions overlap or compliment each other.
The manufacturing environment is so incredibly overstimulating – even for someone like me who has been visiting the Ritherdon factory since February 2018(Art in Manufacturing placement). A method of stepping back yet somehow still being among it all is crucial to not being blindsided. I also think this point further reinforces the idea of undertaking the project over a two year period. a shorter timeline would have in fact done the complexity of the manufacturing environment a disservice, and my brain would have been completely dripping out of my ears.
