Week 6: Noticing the Ignored

Workshop challenge

Select a street nearby, document it & explore it, come up with something unique about it & present the interpretation in a chosen media & format.

The most common road I walk down every single day is called Stoke Fields. It’s a diagonal road that joins the Northern side of the town towards the High Street. It’s come to my attention that I never give the road much credit, especially since I walk down it @ 5am every morning when it’s still dark, & then I walk home I’m too focused on actually getting home rather than looking around.

To start my process, I decided to record some audio clips & take some pictures while walking up & down the road. @ first I tried to look for hidden & forgotten things (old walls, rusty bits of metal) but did not find much. So I decided to just start taking pictures of the street & the houses around it.

I then decided to do a few informal interviews with a few pedestrians walking by. My first encounter was an elderly lady, who unfortunately did not allow me to audio record the conversation, but gave me insight on how this road used to be pedestrians only, & back in the 1700’s used to just be a huge empty field owned by multiple people (hence the name of the street: Stoke Fields).

I continued my interviews by approaching an elderly man named Andy, who ended up giving me a lot of insight on the history of the road, as well as names of other neighbours I should go talk to (parts of the interview can be heard bellow):

Audio link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LxFsD13ylLd79xlIE73vghXPy7kI1VL8

He then directed me to Mike, his neighbour, who gave me insight into a coin he had found while refurbishing his house & taking the front door out. He unfortunately did now want me to audio record him either, but I did take notes as he spoke. He told me about the coin, even showed me it & let me take pictures of it. He told me it was nailed inside the door frame, & had the date of when the house was originally built, which was 1799 (picture bellow). He told me about how people believed that putting a coin in there would stop the bad spirits from coming into the house, & that whoever put it there believed it would be a good find in a few hundred years.

This coin absolutely fascinated me. The fact that it was pretty much hidden, not really in plain site, but still there nonetheless, really had me thinking about the cool & awesome things that lay right beneath our eyes @ all times, sort of like Ben Wilson’s tiny artworks.

The next day, I organised a little interview with an elderly couple: June & Dennis, who live in one of the houses on Stoke Fields. They invited me into their home, & Dennis had propped up a photocopy of the street which dated back to 1826.

Here is parts of the interview with Dennis:

Audio link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SKz9kSQizyMEMwZxH7taa2-Atyt0jM_M

Talking to all those people really gave me insight that the history of the street, & the unnoticed parts, aren’t just found in the middle of the street. Sometimes, having the chance to take some time & talk to people who reside on the street, and who have been there for considerate amounts of time, can give us even deeper insight on the actual unnoticed: the intimate lives that go on behind a door on the street. Meeting Andy, Mike, June & Dennis was very heartwarming, & it made me realise that the unnoticed on Stoke Fields actually mainly resides in the homes of the people who’s houses I have been walking past for over 3 years, which I had never given much thought about. Hence, my initial final piece for this week, being a little collage of the people I met, & the memories I’ve collected for the rest of my life.

FIRST FINAL OUTCOME

I was not fully satisfied with this piece. The feedback also was not great, I was told my final outcome did not feel resolved & that I should find other ways to communicate what I wanted to say. I decided to take Sarah’s advice when she said I could work with overlaying the old map & a new map. I still wanted to stick to a collage, because to me it was the best way to represent they passing of time.