BY KENSAL GREEN, W10
London Archive Chronicles
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Three imaginary enactments of a heap of waste and how I came to photograph it.
Friends of North Kensington: Join us for litter picks in the neighbourhood’s recreational areas on the last Sunday of every month at 11am. Location will change every month. Initially you need to bring as much of the following as you can: litter pickers, gloves, bin bags, recycling bin bags and bag holder hoops. We have some spare. Litter Pick – 19th May 2019 We’ll be going through the canalside foot path from Scrubbs Lane Bridge to Ladbroke Grove (by Sainsbury’s) If anyone has any equipment that can be used for lifting possibly heavy and cumbersome objects from the canal, please bring those along too. Meet at the Mary Seacole Gardens, Scrubbs Lane, White City, London NW10 6QY Reframing the dreams of the day – by Talvimaaria Pulmunen In carrying out this installation Pulmunen deliberately avoided using materials and readymades that are associated with similar contemporary art works in public spaces. Instead, she set out to make it out of found objects as well as debris that she sourced locally. She chose the location carefully, accepting at the same time that her work in progress might be mistaken for a heap of rubbish. Rather than removing the litter thrown by undiscerning members of the public, Pulmunen incorporated this element of chance and intrusion in the process of creating. The red tape around the art work is similar to the ones used in museums and country estates, keeping the viewer and the spectacle separated. Pulmunen’s motives are practical as well as conceptual. She sees her role as an artist to be a non-verbal translator. She therefore welcomes the interpretations of this piece that have been affected by the vicissitudes of its physical state. The work, complex and ironic, has a distant echo of masterpieces in art while simultaneously depicting that what is considered repugnant and unwanted. ‘This installation is a comment on the capitalist society and its pyramid schemes, which are protected like religious relics’, Pulmunen explains, further describing the symbolism of the tape around her work. This is the third outdoor installation by the Finnish visual artist. A banner on the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea website: Please note that we have received several reports of on-going anti-social activity and fly-tipping in the North Kensington area. We are currently working with the Metropolitan Police to solve this issue. |
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I took this photograph on a walk from Kensal Rise to somewhere around Hammersmith. (I have written about it in ‘NW8 – W12 and thereabouts’) I had seen a black and white cat sleeping on a canal boat and had gone to take a photograph of it. Unfortunately, and fortunately, it woke up. It meowed, jumped off the boat and started purring against my legs. I couldn’t take a photograph of it because it kept coming to me to be petted. I was smitten. I had been strictly a dog person until my twenties, that is, until I met cats like this one.
I saw this cordoned off pile of waste on the other side of the bridge. I stood looking at it for a few minutes and decided to photograph it. It was sculptural. It is not beautiful but it is appealing, or an unusual sight to say the least. Most of these photographs in this archive are of buildings, street views, trees, in other words stable elements of the city instead of the fleeting moments or its disorder. This heap of rubbish is unlikely to stay there. I suppose you could say that I took this photograph to have some variety in this project. Did I attempt to beautify something in doing so, by framing it and taking it out of its context? No, I would argue not. I would like to think that I am presenting both, the image and the discarded objects in it, as they are. As a part of the whole picture. I often wonder how these bulky items ended up where they were before being gathered here. Why was the bicycle dumbed in the canal? Result of a murky crime or uncivil laziness? And the shopping trolleys, they get stolen and dumped everywhere in London – who does that? Without waste collectors and street sweepers, London truly wouldn’t be the city that it is. I had to keep moving but before I continued, I wanted to say goodbye to the Cat of the Canal Boat. It was sitting on the pavement, cleaning its white paws. I wondered what name she would have been given if she was one of the feline stars of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’? This part of the canal is marked as Regent’s Canal on Google Maps. However, strictly speaking, Regent’s Canal starts from Paddington, running across London to Limehouse Basin. Its construction of began in 1812 and was completed in 1820. In 1929 it merged with the Grand Union Canal Company. The waterway west of Paddington would, therefore, be part of the Grand Union Canal. The canal network’s main purpose was the transportation of goods between industrial cities such as Birmingham and London. As railways began to be favoured for the transportation of goods, there was an aborted plan to turn Regent’s Canal into a railway. The canal side is now a popular walking and cycling route as well as a docking area for canal boats. (originally published 04.10.2022) |
© Carita Silander
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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
https://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/history/regents.htm https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-regents-canal/ http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/regents-canal/ https://www.brent.gov.uk/libraries-arts-and-heritage/brent-museum-and-archives/your-local-area/history-of-kensal-green-and-kensal-rise An introduction to T.S. Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’ https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/04/11/t-s-eliot-old-possum-book-of-practical-cats-gorey/ |
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A map of canals in and around London, 1796
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A view of the Paddington Canal, 1822, etching . Both images courtesy of the London Picture Archive
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