The Project

Books

Raining! How annoying. I left out the laundry. See pic. I have been buying books and publications as research/inspiration for the publication I intend to produce for Art U Need. See pics. Travel writings by John Betjeman and W.G.Sebald. 'Kingdom Come', the new novel by J.G. Ballard about the sinister nature of M25 towns, and some lovely local guide/travel books. Searching in the English travel section of my favourite sewcondhand bookstore threw up a single reference to Basildon; and a tiny one at that; some facts and figures and a couple of lines telling me thatBasildon was a tiny town but thatits numbers were expected to swel to 135,000 when it becomes a New Town. That's it. Poorold Basildon. Well we can change all that, and provide a glorious publication all about Northlands Park Estate, by the people for the people, and by me, and those that I commission. It's going to taste great, as that really annoying advert keeps shouting at me every time I turn on the telly. (Frosties!!) I will try and input the pics back to front so that they correlate to the text this time, last first etc.

What IsThis Blog?

This blog is a working diary/notebook/sketchbook of the process/progress of the project. I hope that residents of Northland Park Estate will post comments and/or create their own blog identity and join the blog, and we can establish a dialogue.

Street Corners

We were shown one particular street corner on our trip around the area (see 8 Sept entry) that very much lends itself to performance in that it is raised and there is space around and opposite for an audience. I think a Poetry Slam could be greta. We could have a day or week of workshops for people, so that they might feel confident enough to stand up and have a go at the evening wevent. I wondered if we should do several street corners all at once, or one spot same time same place over say five days or do a pied piper event over one eveing, starting off at one corner and moving on to next, hopefully building up a following as you go.All or any of these ideas could work well.

Nowhere

Chris (Arcadia) popped over to help me with uploading photos to this blog. Getting there. I showed him this image of a map in thge Liverpool Street area in London. I wanted to do something similar in Basildon but worried about cost etc. He seemed to think it was feasible. I talked about my Mapping ideas and how wwe could practically do it. An auditorium/lecture thetare seems the best area so many people can come and tell us what they call each spot then we can eithertake a vote or simply choose the name that comes up the most. Chris said he felt the naming of the Norwich Lanes was wrong in that Brighton has Brighton Lanes and that the local name for lanes here is "lokes", so it should have been called the Norwich Lokes. This is good and relevant. It would be great to get all the local local names for areas and I am going to see if a local dialect book exists for that area of Essex?
It would be great to site the new map which we getmade in the middle of Northlands Park say, at a spot which we will call Nowhere. I loved the spot in Big Brother 7 which they called Nowhere. "Lea and Pete are nowhere..." Excellent.
Re mapping again.I would also like to do a psycho-geography exercise. I will print up a big wall-sized map and ask people to draw in their own 'map' ie the routes they most frequently travel. e should end up with a spirograph like drawing, which can be sa spread in the publication. It will be interesting to see how heavily some areas are frequented, no doubt the more remote zones will be very rarely visited. Or will I be wrong? Re the publication. Chris (Arcadi) suggested we get the local 'Youth" to create a page advert which promotes them and/or says what's good about their patch? Maybe we would need separate pages for rival gangs? West Side Story!!

Tuesday 19 Sept 2006

I received copies of the contracts today and the Artist's Brief. I am a little concerned as to the area I am dealing with; whether it is just Northlands Park or the whole neighbourhood. I will await clarification before signing. Yesterday I found a delightful publication in Oxfam called the East Anglian Magazine dated October 1955. I also want to get Betjeman's writings on England and W.G.Sebald's 'Rings of Saturn' to use as source material for the Basildon publication. I got very excited yesterday by the idea of installing a container onto Northlands Park to be my site office and a place where residents could come in and see what was happening. Did I say this already yesterday? I imagined it getting graffittied. Or maybe it would maintain it's white gloss sheen and radiate an ethereal presence? It could also be where the Big Brother style Diary Room could be. But there are of course issues of electricity, toilets, security. This morning I got even more excited about the idea of creating an allotment patch, bang slap in the middle of the park. It would be an honesty allotment. Anyone could come and work on it and anyone could pick the fruit and veg. of course in reality it would most likely end up either neglected or trashed. But wouldn't it be worth trying it to see, Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe people would love it? Of course you might then end up with the problem of some people getting very involved and working a lot on it and being resentful if people turn up very occassionally but share the produce? Still no photos as my man wasn't able to come over today after all. Maybe Thursday. Commissions east called. Everything is cool, so all stations go. Also, I ran the idea of the container by Joanna and she liked it and thought it could most certainly be possible. She also liked the idea of the allotment. Excellent. To buy a 10ft container costs £950, or they can be hired for £1.50 a day. I think I would buy it and then eitheroffer itto Northlands Park to keep; theycould use it for futre artist-in-residence posts, or I would sell it or have it craned onto my allotment in Norwich? Great. Felt very bupoyant after speaking to Joanna. I tink the container is a great idea as it will provide a public point of focus for the project. I could have a letter box and invite people to drop in drawings, photos, stories pictures which can A be put up inside and B be possible material for the publication. I could also create a link with a local school, to whom I could fax all the latest info that needs to be chalked up onto the blackboard which could be one whole wall of the container. And if I could harness some volunteers to be able to man it when I'm not there, so that it is open to the public at specific times. It would provide a meeting point for the outdoor events and a place to store the materials and the place from which to launch the publication. If residents are part of the ongoing process of the project as it develops I have a much better chance of them attending the workshops and events and of creating material for the publication. And it would personalise the project; I wouldn't be some fleeting external presence but would have a base, even if I can't be in it that much.

Mon 18 Sept 2006

Hi blog. I had a good meeting on Friday evening with a local collective called Arcadia. They are very culturally active/proactive and count amongst their skills drawing/illustration/graphic design/record label/guerilla gigs/being very thoughtful/wearing good stuff/djing and trying to educate residents of King Street, where inciden'tally we all live, by putting books into a little window; the display changes regularly. I have noticed Kerouac's 'On The Road and George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' - or am I making that up? My memory is certainly not as good as it used to be. Anyway, I hoped to commission them in capacity of graphic technicians re the publication and all campaign fodder and also to do illustrations and painting workshops and maybe some gigs? They were very into the project and have offered to come with me for a proper weekend recce of the area in which we hope to sample all that is good or all that is bad about Northlands Park Estate. I have been considering the fact that all the outdoor events that I am planning will take place in january. Last night I was googling Container Storage. This morning it strikes me as a genius plan, that we could have some containers craned in for some of the out door events. I would like some sort of Talkaoke. Interestingly all three memebers of Arcadia have personl experience of New Towns. marie-Claire grew up in one, Thetford; Darren's family moved down from London to Billericay; Chris's link I can't remeber. Talkaoke. A round table, a compere holding the mike and tabling questions/issues; the mike is then passsed around to whoever wishes to speak. I am fascinated by the whole New Town thing and would like to spark off some debate about it with current residents, planners, original New Town residents etc. Containers. Talkaoke. Also the speed buddy event could take place in a container. I wonder if I coul dset up a container to be permanently on site throughout the project to act as my office/planning room/ a drop in spot/ a blog spot and the place where the Big Brother Diary Room ccould be? This is I feel a very good idea as it will create a focus for the whole project for the residents.

Fri 15 Sept 06

Usual struggle getting up, feeding kids, no-one's teeth got cleaned, just about got to school on time, with Son 2 dragging on my arm all the way. It's quite hard to keep things moving forward both physicallly and mentally when you have a little person literally pulling you backwards all the way. Hmm. 7 emails in my in box when I got home. All the artists and writers I have been contacting to get involved with the project all say YES. Hurray. This is very good news. I have many ideas, and they are constantly evolving. I hope to do a mass street corner poetry slam. I can't decide whether we should stick to one street corner, the one Doreen showed me with the steps up to it that need to be removed, or go for as many street corners as possible? I hope to involve as many street-corner hanger-outers as possible. The plan is to host a day of poetry workshops - don't know where yet, maybe in the Adult Education College - then have the live performances that night and hope that some of the locals feel brave enough, with their newly learned skills, to take part. Practical logistics - weather/cold - it will be winter. Lighting? Refreshments? Unfortunately this is a project to regenerate open spaces taking place through the depths of winter. Also, would have to hope that residents near the street corner will view the activity positively and come and get involved too. I also have an idea of re-mapping the Northlands Park: re-naming key spots to create a virtual map, and adding in a level of fantasy. I'm not yet sure how this will work. It's a big park. I also would very much like artist Fiona Banner to do a live landscape portrait in words which could then become a Pull Out section of the publication? I want to do a Speaker's Corner event on the spot just to the left of the road that has a Teenage Village in place. I don't yet know all the names of the places. This will be an opportunity for local fanatacists (fanatical about anything: dogs, lentils...?) to have their shout. There will be surreptitious art drops, gueriila gigs, maybe a mass frisbee event. It's amazing once you start looking who is out there and what they are doing. There are lots of people doing this stuff. I look forward to tapping into them all.
Woke up of course to all the usual fears- my house is a tip, I don't want to get up, what if I can't make all this stuff happen, what if no-one comes? Etc etc.

Thurs 14 Sept 06

I'm very new to this blog thing. I had saved the posted Basildon Blog on my bookmarks bar, but then, when I opened it up this morning I couldn't work out how to add a new post. What I needed to do was bookmark the blogger site, then sign in each time. OK. Got it now, I think. Went to Borders yesterday to get a stash of literary magazines as research for the Basildon Blag (working title). I had spotted a couple the day before. When I went back to buy them, having been told that I had got the Art U Need commission, I saw loads more and ended up buying seven, plus a Clarice Bean book! 'Emblem: Issue 2'; 'The illustrated Ape': Issue 11; 'The Believer: Issue 36; 'Meat Magazine': Issue 5; 'Bad Idea: Modern Storytelling': Issue 1; 'Dot,Dot, Dot': Issue 12; 'Dreams That Money Can Buy': Vol 3. Volume? Issue? I always get a bit confused by this categoriastion. How many issues = a volume? Did DTMCB not even bother then with issues? straight into volumes? In the end I felt a little dispirited/overwhelmed because there was so much out there. Whta can I add to this? Hmm. Anyway, the Basildon Blag will be a little different, and my real purpose in buying these magazines is to look at size, format, style, type of paper, typography, imagery, etc. lots of them make good use of illustration which I very much like and hope to make use of: illustrations, paintings and pictures by residents. An illustration is much more personal than a photograph. i will however start adding in photographs to this blog once I have worked out how. My next task is to try and get quotes from printers for all these different publications to get an idea of what the blag really could be. I am meeting Chris and Darren later today from artits's collective Arcadia. I would like them to work on the magazine with me. Apparently darren is a graphic design whizz.

Friday 8 September 2006

I'm writing this entry after the event, having just learnt how to upload photos, so apologies for the chronological confusion. (I've now learnt how to add the photos but am finding thatthey load up most recently loaded first, so the writing order and photograph order won't match. So this may be a confusing post, but now I know for future posts.)
Site visit to Northlands Park Estate. I arrived at Basildon station, not the most auspicious arrival point, scuffed and drab, and followed the blue sign which led me out of the station across a large road and around the corner to the taxi rank sited in front of Debenhams. I was astonished to see a veritable fleet of taxis? Why so many taxis in a deprived area? Perhaps Basildon itself isn't deprived, just the Northlands Park area? But then, a thing of beauty; across the front of the Debenhams building was a wonderful mural. See photos. I got into a lady driven taxi and asked for the Felmores shops. I chatted to the taxi driver about living in Basildon, whether she liked it? She said ithad changed in the last ten years, since the arrival of so many immigrants, who she admitted were nice people. She continued to say that "they" kept sending people down from London. How ironic, in that New Towns were built specifically as London overspill towns. She was less complimentary about the London incomers. I asked if she used the Northlands Park and she said she didn't as it was full of paedophiles and unsavoury types. She didn't feel safe walking around on her own, and she said mothers didn't take their children to the park unless there was a specific event on like the Carnival. This however seemed not to be the case as during out tour of the area the kid's playground was busy enough. It seemed to me immediately that there was a culture of fear. Where had these urban myths come from about the park being full of paedophiles etc? What were the actual facts. I did question the resident volunteers who took us around and was told that there is a Detention Centre very near to the park which houses people who are on bail and some of the residents were paedophiles. I can't remember if they are still there or not. Meet the residents. See pic.I currently can't find my notes with everyone's names on. These guys are part of the local resident steering committee. Also,here's Tony, next pic, who heads up Interlock, the local neighbourhood agency. He is going to be my main port of call linking me to the residents. I and another artist were taken off by the reidents on a local tour in a mini-bus. See pic. And see pic of lurid synthetic seat covers! Our first stop was the Nortland Park. Immediately, two youths wearing baseball caps sited! We're in Essex after all. It was a lovely sunny day. We went for a stroll. Several kids and their parents wer in the playground. The first thing you notice though is a red and blue tubular structure with steps up. On enquiry I learnt that this was a Teenage Village, built specifically for teenagers to hang out in instead of bus-shelters/street corners. It was conveniently located right in front of the car park. Easy monitoring distance for PC Plod. Turns out the "kids" graffited and sat on top of one until told it was for them. they haven't been near it since. Another one was removed in themiddle of the nigt withan angle-grinder. Not that popular then? Could be could spots for Poetry Slam events/Speaker's Corner events? See pic. We were shown the Hot Spot garden with mediterranean plants, taking into account climate change. Apparently the signature plants have been stolen. Doreen pointed out the beauty of the lake, well-used by anglers. It was she felt as beautiful and welll maintained apark as the grounds around Buckingham Palace where she had recntly been to recieve an award for her services to the local community. It is a lovely spot. See pic. We were also shown a woodlands, where it seems people fear to tread, although a cyclist and a lady and a little girl did come through whilst we were there. See pics. We were shown a small green in a cul-de-sac of houses which would seem toland itself to being a little play area for the kids living in the square, but sadly, the houses had very high fences so didn't naturally open up to the square; also, there was an old peopple's home making up the fourth wallof houses bearing the plaque No Ball Games. I thould so,me plaques saying Smile, Be Happy, Joy might help! Give an idea of what people can do rather than what they can't. I hope to host an outdoor portrait painting event here. Led by an artist. Like te painters who sit in Leicester Square, or in Florence. See pics. We were taken to a meadow/common area which Doreen told us was fullof blackberries in the hedgerows and fruit in the trees that goes to waste because people don't pick it.The area is used miostly by dog-walkers. They had placed goalposts in there to encourage kids to come and play foortball but the residenst who overlook the area com[plained! I thought we could have a blackberry and apple crumble bake-off, led by Doreen.We will certainly incude crumble recipesin the publication.It would also be the perfect site to host a Counrtry Games event where they could start a new tradition. Scotland hyad cabre-tossing,, Spain has bull-running; Essex could have???? See pics. We drove past another Teenage Village sited on a patch of green alongside the road. i think this could be a great spot for a Speaker's Corner Event where locals can relally have a shoiut about what they believ in. See pic. Does anyone remeber the man who used to walk up and down Oxford Street telling everyone that protein was evil and led to lust? he became a mini-celebrity shortly befor ehe died.

Just lifted this from an online London travel guide. Photo didn't load. I'll take my own later:

START"Speaker's Corner Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park is one of the best places to let off steam in London . It is one of the most famous locations symbolizing democratic rights in the world.
.
Historical Background
Amongst those who have attended meetings there, are the some of the most influential figures in world history like Karl Marx, Fredrick Engels and Lenin. Even Cromwell's corpse was hung up here in a cage for public display, after he had died as a warning to others who might wish to abolish the Monarchy. This was of course in the days before Speaker's Corner when at the same location was "Tyburn", one of the "hanging fields" of London. Other's whose ghosts haunt this corner include William Morris, George
Orwell, the Pankhursts, CLR. James, Benn Tillet, Marcus Garvey, and a star spangled cast of millions more who shall remain unmentioned, excepting the immovable Lord Soper, still speaking at 94. Speaker's Corner has had a more powerful influence than any "university" in the world, because here there are no entry requirements, no rules of intellectual formality and above all no class restrictions. It is as Leslie James the Hyde Park pamphleteer wrote a fitting location to represent "the century of the common man."
Tourists or visitors to such official places of "learning" as Cambridge or Oxford University are not allowed to attend any lecture they like, come and go when they choose, and take part in debate and discussion. It is precisely these characteristics that mark out Speaker's Corner as a strange and exciting place, a place where mankind meets itself in a generally pleasurable atmosphere.
Tens of thousands of people come to Speaker's Corner once or twice a year, thousands more who come 5-10 times a year, and hundreds who come virtually through hell or high water. When you consider that there is nothing to buy here, there is no music, just human interaction without the mediation of machines and without any protection from the weather you begin to get a small glimpse of the significance of this place. Consider for a moment the so called Opinion Polls that the mass media constantly pump out, they take a survey of random samples of certain social groups and claim an accuracy rate, extrapolated from this to the entire country, of + or - 3-4%. But Opinion Polls are static phenomena a snap shot seeking out for example a yes, no, or maybe, answer. The human brain is however not static but undergoing constant change, a person may think one thing, and yet internally have doubts. Speaker's Corner may be seen as a dynamic refection of mass psychology in that you have here people from every walk of life, every class, and almost every country.
There is of course a widespread belief that Speaker's Corner is some kind of "nuthouse", where "cranks" and tourists go. Lenin once related the story of a man who was wildly shaking, seated, his arms were swinging around, the observer thought it was a madman, but upon closer inspection he discovered it was a man sharpening a knife.
Speaker's Corner is perhaps the most dynamic mirror of human consciousness in the world."END

Hmm. Basildon can have its very own Speaker's Corner.

Wed 13 Sept 06

After a sleepless night fretting about all the what ifs - how much does it cost to hire a marquee? (For the Basildon Buddy event). Plus, I'm going to need to hire everything! Chairs, tables, helpers etc etc. It's all very well having these big ideas, practical reality is another consideration. And, horror of horrors, what if no-one turns up? - we were twenty minutes late to school. Son 2 was very reluctant to go, and insisted I sit in class with him and read him some stories. On my way home I stopped off at Borders to look at the literary magazine section. There are two new ones: Bad Idea and Ape Illustrated. One of them used stonespublishers. I will contact them as my first port of call for a quote for a publication. Although I will need to have some idea of the population of Northlands Park. Should it be a free copy for every household? I was thinking a good title for it might be Basildon Blag: (Your Annual Rag) The Art U Need Guide to Northlands Park. I hope it's acceptable to use Basildon in there, as with this blog, it's just that it rolls off the tongue a bit better than Northlands Park Estate. More issues that will need to be clarified. The idea for the publication is that it be part traveller/tourist guide - fulfilling the brief of the Northlands Park Partnership Management pathfinder year 4 Delivery Plan to make Northlands Park a "Thriving Neighbourhood...a safe, clean healthy...place, where people want to stay and move to...", part index of local shops, services, amenities - this could even be a pull out section, and part creative forum with as much input from residents as possible. But I am working in a vacuum here and have to start from ground up. I need to find a publisher, an art director, typesetter, illustrators, photographers, and I also have to reach you, the residents, for your input. I think a notice board in the GP/neighbourhood office, can't remember what it's called just now, wouldbe a goodidea. I need to arrange a meeting with all the local groups, schools etc and a plan of action re leafletting etc. I'm going to call the publishers now for an idea of costs and timescales. It is most likely that I would need to have all material to them by January for the publication to be a reality in March. I have to admit I'm a bag of nerves.