We started Final Fridays 7 in the usual way, by discussing some of the outcomes and ephemera collected at the research centre in Altogether Otherwise.
On route to our first sketching stop, we told each other stories of walking in strange or unusual places, using senses other than sight, and relaying feelings of trepidation, doubt, and being unsettled.
Our two sketching stops for this walk were pieces of public artwork that you might describe as being hidden in plain sight. First was Breaking the Mould (2000) by Andrew McKeown. Situated in a public park built on reclaimed land from the old Collyhurst Quarry, this sculpture symbolises the notion of giving birth to new life. On our way to this sculpture, some participants talked about how they wanted to ‘get back into drawing’, contemplating how the ritual or routine of a regular drawing practice was something we all wanted to retrieve, recapture, relearn, and reclaim, from possible futures, unrealised in our current present.
Our second stop, viewable from the first, was Totem (c.1945) by William Mitchell. This concrete sculpture stands in vicinity of the now demolished shopping parade at Eastford Square, which was for a while abandoned and vacant; a ghostly shadow of the bustling community that still lives there.
The premise for this walk was about being active in a landscape that is loaded with failed futures; sharing stories of hope, reclamation, and retrieval, guided by more than human presence.
The Final Fridays continues on Friday the 30th of August. Book your place here.