Silvermines: Becoming Utopia

In many ways this unfolding project has been an attempt to discern the ways in which rural space is ordered and controlled and to locate occluded or counter-hegemonic practices and thinking.

The character of non-metropolitan space is quite different to that of urban space –topographically space tends to be more apparently open and horizontal but subject to an invisible architecture of regulation governing land-use; rural audiences or publics are more dispersed but often less transitory so encounters tend to be quite different; temporality is not linear and progressive as I described earlier but tends to include the past in a more real and concrete way; engagement with nature is integral to the social, economic and cultural matrix and then of course there are areas which are neither urban nor rural.

Silvermines is an area of ecological disaster; seven centuries of mining have left the watercourses and the land impregnated with heavy metals. It is also a beautiful place with an incredibly interesting and complex history. Imagining Silvermines; a psychogeography was developed in response to the passion for local history that I encountered all over Tipperary but particularly in Silvermines.

Using the Space Shuttle I entered into an agreed exchange with the people of the village; I provided a space and a display service arranging whatever material people brought to form the ‘collection’ of a temporary museum. In return they afforded me an opportunity to enquire into the narrative constructions and practices that were used by different groupings within that community to make sense of their place, including nostalgia, racing and burning out cars, graffiti, farming practices, a kind of epic poem tradition peculiar to the area, and also an unpicking of the construction of local history.

In response to that first encounter stage and with the intention of extending the notion of psychogeography that informed it I am developing a publication Silvermines: Becoming Utopia for distribution back into the community that befriended me and vice versa. The intention is to reflect the ‘tactics’ employed by different groups of people to make sense of this place.

The publication is also an attempt to place the project in critical relation to itself, to subvert conventions of ‘reading’ and include the participant-reader in the act of meaning making. To that end the publication will include a number of movable elements and sections, a number of board games designed around the realities of the place, a fictional ‘I’ve Been to Silvermines’ tourist merchandising line based on the legacy of mining for a much-desired but presently absent tourist industry, and a selection of material and maps gathered or generated through the project that may be real or fictional.

The completion of the project is currently funding-dependant and will be developed in collaboration with Clive Moloney, Sally-Ann McFadden (artists who worked with me during the first stage of the project) and Dave Wrenne, graphic designer.

Still here!

Things have been very quiet in terms of the public face of this project for a while, but I have been collaborating on the book with Clive Moloney, Sally Ann Mc Fadden and Dave Wrenne (designer) over the last few months.




The book is taking quite an interesting form; it's going to be far more expensive to produce than I can afford so we need to get one or two dummy's together and look for funding.



I went to Silvermines yesterday to take some images for the publication; it was a beautiful misty day but the sun broke through when I arrived. I managed to take some shots of the ochre slag (for the cover) and also went up to Shallee mines to get another shot of the 'canyon'. There has been quite a lot of work done there, and an ad has been placed looking for companies to tender and take over the management of the place - in advance of development maybe, I am not sure.



Magcobar has been closed and fenced off, to keep the travellers out I expect. The usual story, just lock the travellers out rather than deal with their need for space.



I wandered up and down looking for the big area of subsidence; despite having a map from Robin Wallace showing me where to find it I just could not. Unless I actually stood on it, but that looked like a slag heap to me.

The Shadow of a Project

The Space Shuttle quietly departed Silvermines yesterday and headed for Kilfenora in Co. Clare.
Billy Grace, the principal of the school was kind enough to send me these photos of the space preciously occupied by the s/s in the form of the Silvermines Imaginary Museum.

End of an era

Miles 151
Carbon footprint 44kg
Expenses 15 euro hardware 150 euro on food for the pub night

Well, it's all over. I can't say I am sorry - it was such a strain really in the end on family, work, domestic life in general.

Anyway we arrived on Friday morning, en famille (it was the start of our holidays). A few people turned up with stuff, including Michael O' Brien with some amazing implements.

Clive and Sally turned up to finish work in the Handball alley with the graffiti project, looking a bit hassled and distressed. It turned out that some of the youngsters who were not signed up had been giving them serious grief and stealing paint cans and graffiting on the back of the handball alley.

To be fair to the youngsters, they did it out of sight. They could have sprayed somewhere really public and caused a lot of trouble for us, but I think they just wanted to have a go.

I had to talk to them about their disrespect and ask them to behave, basically. They only kind of listened to me - not really. Sally and Clive agreed to do 20 mins with them after the project had finished painting over the bad language stuff by showing them how to do something a little more cool.

At 2 pm Robin Wallace came by and took me down Shallee mine - so that was terrifying. 2 billion tons of unsecured rock over your head, water running and dripping everywhere, it was like something out of a nightmare really. We went on a circular route through some really dark tunnels and then had to clamber over a deep rushing river and around the edge of a bottomless pool. And as we got close to the entrance (luckily we could see daylight at the time) we heard a sound like a low-flying aircraft except it remained constant. I thought it must be a machine of some kind, but I couldn't think what machine would be operating so close. Then the two of us suddenly got really nervous that what we were hearing was the collapse of the entire cliff! I made a bit of a dart for the exit, but then it seemed to stop. Later I talked to a man who had been a miner and told him about it - he said 'oh you heard the rock creaking'. I asked him if it was really rock creaking and he said he didn't know, it might be water or wind in the tunnels, but that's what they call it.

We went to Nenagh in the afternoon to stock up on food and wellies for the kids, in preparation for an entirely wet summer holiday.

Saturday dawned and I had a lot to do, putting up the new stuff that had arrived. The marquee came at about 3.15 (cutting it fine!) and Melanie arrived - we went over some stuff in advance of her speech and it's possibly the first time I talked with her about the actual nature of the project from my perspective as an artist.

I think the important part was distinguishing between this stage which I see as an encounter and the final stage which is where I will interpret the encounter and create an artistic product, that is the publication.

So, everyone arrived, tea and buns arrived. It was a good crowd, a nice local mix. Of course I didn't manage to talk to loads of people but that's always the way.

Just as the speeches were beginning, my 4 year old who had been complaining of a pain in her tummy puked violently all over the place, and partly on the county manager. Andrew whisked her away and the speeches went on. I hate that part, I always want the ground to open up and swallow me.

In the evening I went to the pub with Andrew for the story and song night. We had arranged a local girl as a babysitter she was great. The evening was not really what I was hoping for but I met some people I had not really spoken to before and that was great.

Next morning we had to rush the 4 year old into the doctor as we started to get really worried about appendix. It was kind of inconclusive and the doc suggested we go back in the evening. I opened up just before mass ended and there was the most amazing gathering in the museum after mass, all the 'heavyweights' as Andrew called them, talking over the photos, the contents of the museum and so on. I was kicking myself that I had no recording gear set up. It was a great conversation.

Anyway, I took everything down and closed up and we rolled out of town. A bit like the circus really.

I think it worked. I think there was trust generated and good discussion and a real sharing of thoughts, memories, stories, ideas. Looking forward to starting work on the book.

And to top it all off, the sun came out for the whole week of our holidays. I felt like I had never seen the sun before.

Admin

6 hours doing admin and updating the website. Quite a lot of time spent on the phone.

second last weekend

Miles 151
Carbon footprint 39kg
Expenses Food 24 +65 euro (returned jigsaw)

I went to Nenagh to bring back the crap jigsaw that never worked. Arrived in Silvermines just before 10; the sun was out for a while, and it was nice setting up and getting things in place. Jim Quirke arrived with a few pieces for the collection and then Clive and Sally came. They showed me some images from the site-specific piece up at Shalee which is looking fantastic. They have taken sections of the toxicology maps and painted them onto the weird infrastructure up there. They have also been collecting mottos from Mining Companies and Mining Workers Unions and inscribing them as text works. (I’m not sure that they have quite got the massive and important political distinction between the motto of a Mining Company ‘Employ the People; Enrich Yourselves’ and that of a Mining Workers Union ‘Strength Through Unity’ but we will have that conversation at some point.)

I told them that so far only one person had signed up for the Youth Art project, none of the kids from the estate. They spotted a couple of the teenagers wandering down the road, and went off to see whether they were planning to join.

After a while they came back looking a bit 'frit' as my friend would say. 'None of the estate kids are doing it' said Sally. It turned out that Daryl would be on holidays, so his girlfriend won't do it, so her friend won’t do it, so the other two boys won't do it because the girls aren't doing it . . . . etc. etc.

We went on a bit of a campaign. C&S got in touch with Father Moloney who agreed to do a big announcement at mass and then they made big colourful posters.

After we had hung up the posters they headed off; I went to see Michael O' Brien to borrow his photo album. I met Pat Keane on the way back we had a chat and then I had to excuse myself so that I could listen to the Lyric FM programme. It was a bit heavy on the 'Space Shuttle' metaphor for my taste, a bit lacking in content. I'm not sure anyone would have a clue what I was up to from listening to it, although the whole context aspect got fairly well clarified.

I started work on a hand-drawn map of the area for the story map which in a way is the real heart of the psychogeography aspect. I wish I had been able to do it weeks ago, but I suppose you get there when you get there.

In the evening at about 6 an absolute deluge came in from the south-west; a real wall of blackness and rain with some incredibly loud and close thunderstorms. I felt quite nervous about being in a stainless steel box, so I went and sat in the campervan. There was just no let up - it went on and on for ages, with the thunder really close and prolonged.

Eventually I got bored and figured that if it was going to hit anything it would probably be the church steeple across the road, so I went back into the museum. I locked myself in so that I could get some work done (not due to open again until 7).

Then there was a banging on the door; I could not find the key so whoever was out there was standing in the absolute downpour. Finally, I found the key and opened the door to M, a young teenager from the area, who wanted me to drive her to a town about 10 miles away. 'I can't possibly do that' I said, and inquired where her parents were. She said they were all out or away, and that she was locked out of the house and could I lend her 10 euro to get a taxi. On the basis that if I didn't she was planning to hitch (in the dark and pouring rain) and knowing that I would probably not see the tenner again I agreed. I felt really nervous wondering if it was the right thing to do. Should I have turned her out in the rain? I just didn't know.

After mass a few kids came in to get forms for the youth art project, so Father Moloney had worked a bit of magic.

Sunday morning dawned quite bright and sunny; mass was absolutely chockablock. There was a bit of a rush after mass, some visitors and some people looking to register for the youth art.

Martina Finn arrived; she has taken over as Community Development officer having been Acting Arts Officer for the first two thirds of the residency. We talked over and around some stuff; on lots of things we really agree but there are aspects of the residency relationship that maybe neither of us handled that well so some lingering discomfort with that.

Darren and Pressure arrived, wondering whether they could still sign up for the Graffiti Project, but too cool to ask directly. First they had to spend a while insulting the project and then mine and Martina’s cars respectively (I’ll give you 300 for it). I do like them both – I doubt they will do the project though. They don’t really do 10 o clock in the morning, or 5 days a week – they just want to show up for the painting in the Handball Alley.

To close up I really emptied the place and turned it finally into a 'museum' for next week's finale. I went to see Tommy Hickey about the evening of story and song - he has already put up posters but seemed to think I would do MC!!!!!!!!! He has obviously never seen me in action in public. Completely hopeless on any kind of stage.

So, really looking forward to the end of this thing now, although it's been great but I am worn out and I am looking forward to working on the publication. In private.

First Weekend gig

Miles 150
Carbon Footprint 39 kg
Expenses 15 hardware, 20 food

I had to bring my young girls with me so we left home at 8.45 pm on Friday evening. It was really windy which is a bit nerve racking when I am driving the camper van as it kind of blows all over the road.

Anyway we arrived safely, though the girls were very nervous about the sound of the wind in the trees close by to where we had parked.

images from the evolving 'collection'

Opened up at about 8.30 and did some work setting up. I started work on the timeline which had previously been in the form of post-it notes and then set about putting up material. I had a few visitors including Anthony Collins, who was very proud to see his Miner's Helmet in the Nenagh Guardian! He had a great suggestion which was that I organise an evening of story, poem and song in the local pub. As he was talking a young man whom I had not seen before was looking at stuff; he turned out to be a documentary maker from Nenagh who is making a programme on Silvermines for TG4.

Quite a number of visitors throughout the day. At 3 pm we took off for Nenagh and did some shopping and various things, drove around the area showing Andrew some of the sights.

Sure enough, as predicted, cheap JigSaw turns out to be totally crap. Blade falls out immediately upon use.

I opened up again at 7pm and although there was a big crowd at 8 o clock mass just across the road, the rain had become a bit of a downpour by then so only one woman came by. It was good actually, because I spent the evening putting the threads in place which is an important aesthetic and conceptual addition to the display; it links material to different facts and dates within the 'annal' created by the timeline and obviously introduces physically the notion of 'drawing' meaning.

Sunday morning was quiet; Robin the documentary maker came back bringing two great gas masks that his dad had used during his time working in the Mogul mine. Things were relatively quiet until after lunch when there was a bit of a rush. In fact I didn't manage to close until 4 pm rather than 3 as I had planned.

I spoke to Tommy Hickey about the idea of the song night in the pub on the 18th as part of the closing event; he was totally enthusiastic. Robin Wallace will probably come and film that which will be fantastic.

Got home just after 6 pm.