Camera : Ron Suffield. (6 mins. 50 secs.)
In 2008 I was invited to do an artist's residency in West Kingston-upon Hull. The area was in a re-development zone that was bordered by a dual carriageway; a railway track and the river Humber. The district was called 'Newington and St Andrews' or by the acronym NASA. It was well known for chips, empty shops and used to be the centre of the fishing industry.
A large proportion of the budget for the project was spent on a months rent for a shop. It was one of many empty buildings on Hessle Road and wasn't expensive. All the pallets used to build the table were donated from businesses in the area. When it was dismantled a friend loaded it in his van to use as firewood. Only a handful of people saw it before it was dismantled. A few months later the world wide economic crisis began and the redevelopment project for the area was cancelled.
A large proportion of the budget for the project was spent on a months rent for a shop. It was one of many empty buildings on Hessle Road and wasn't expensive. All the pallets used to build the table were donated from businesses in the area. When it was dismantled a friend loaded it in his van to use as firewood. Only a handful of people saw it before it was dismantled. A few months later the world wide economic crisis began and the redevelopment project for the area was cancelled.
379. Hessle Road, the shop I rented.
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The bench/runway stretched from the far corner of the shop right up to the glass in the bottom corner of the window. It bisected the shop diagonally.
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As well as lorry pallets I also used a trailer winch. The tension in the rope is adjusted by lorry cargo straps that fix one of the pulleys to the end wall. The movement sensor that triggers the power is positioned so that it only switches on when a high sided vehicle outside goes past the shop.
Child's book on `Trucks' opened at a specific page.
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Reflection of a high sided van going past the window.
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The project was a short research and development residency. Consequently many elements were provisional. The end result was a mobile visual cacaphony of ideas. Each truck was in a sense a sketch of an idea that reflected the local environment in some way. The following is a letter to RKL art consultants discussing the context of the proposal.
Head of Public Realm, ARC, The architecture centre for Hull and the Humber region.
Dear Graham
My relationship to Hull and the NASA area is a 'love hate' one and in some way my proposal reflects this. When we last met in Hull I took you up to the footbridge over the A63. I hope this will prove to be a useful experience because it forms the starting point for my proposal. This bridge over the dual carriageway was somewhere that I always gravitated to when I lived in the NASA area twenty years ago. For me its attraction was that it alluded to 'leaving the place'. This longing was also satisfied there, as on more than one occasion I started hitch hiking from the same spot.
The dual carriageway is relatively new and I think it was only completed in the 1980's, before then, the main entry to Hull was through Hessle Road and Anlaby Road. It sits where the railway goods lines serving the docks used to be and runs parallel to the now filled-in fish dock. As it follows the river, I see the road, in all its twentieth century banality, as yet another strand to the linear topography of this location, taking people and things 'somewhere', or in my case, 'anywhere' other than here.
Head of Public Realm, ARC, The architecture centre for Hull and the Humber region.
Dear Graham
My relationship to Hull and the NASA area is a 'love hate' one and in some way my proposal reflects this. When we last met in Hull I took you up to the footbridge over the A63. I hope this will prove to be a useful experience because it forms the starting point for my proposal. This bridge over the dual carriageway was somewhere that I always gravitated to when I lived in the NASA area twenty years ago. For me its attraction was that it alluded to 'leaving the place'. This longing was also satisfied there, as on more than one occasion I started hitch hiking from the same spot.
The dual carriageway is relatively new and I think it was only completed in the 1980's, before then, the main entry to Hull was through Hessle Road and Anlaby Road. It sits where the railway goods lines serving the docks used to be and runs parallel to the now filled-in fish dock. As it follows the river, I see the road, in all its twentieth century banality, as yet another strand to the linear topography of this location, taking people and things 'somewhere', or in my case, 'anywhere' other than here.
Image: Photo of a strike in the early 60's made into the back of a truck.
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I cut one of the horns off the front of the truck and put it in the model railway figures hand to imitate a megaphone.
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On Hessle Road, where I had stationed myself for the residency, was an unusual shop called "Memory Lane". It sold nothing but old photographs of the area. For a small fee the owner would sell photo copies of them.
In 2017 I redeveloped this work into the Miniature , Austerity Mayday Parade.
In 2017 I redeveloped this work into the Miniature , Austerity Mayday Parade.
In this sketch I was trying something out with images I had taken in the area. This image of the top deck of a bus was taken from the upstairs room in the shop as it went past the window.
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A large truck about to trigger the movement sensor by going past the window of the shop.
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The toy figure on the top deck of the bus is filming a photograph of the back of the local bus depot.
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Although it was intended that lorries would trigger the movement sensor, the shop was on a bus route and so inevitably it was often triggered by a double decker.
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Another shot of Hessle Road taken sometime in the 70's. Parked next to the distinctive 'Kingston Communications' cream coloured phone box is a 'Fiat X1.9'
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Another street scene image courtesy of the 'Memory Lane'. shop. Behind the bus is a 'Karrier' truck. (the same as this toy)
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As the toy trucks turned or stopped at the window it was possible to study the images more closely.
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A photograph of the old, long gone fish dock bridge stops in the shop window. You can just make out a red and cream 'Hillman Minx' car through the steel girders.
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The A63 is a by pass that goes through the area cutting it off from the river. A lot of the traffic is on its way to the docks. Historically this area would have been the railway marshalling yards before heavy goods traffic moved from rail to road.
The photograph was taken from a pedestrian bridge that went over the road. To get up to the bridge the path ascends in a spiral. I fondly remember me and my friends calling this 'The curly bridge' when we were students in Hull.
On the dual carriageway is a yellow `Hull Corporation' refuse truck.
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(the other side) The domed bin on the back of the dust cart is a very old design that I thought nobody used anymore. Its on a very modern chassis and I'm guessing the council may have had them specially made. What ever the reason I found it a strange throw back to the past. By chance I managed to take this photo while it was parked up outside the `Memory Lane' photo shop.
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For more images of the 'Hessle road residency' click on this picture of a toy rufuse truck!
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