the peeps ancoats, dan dubowitz by dan dubowitz

the peeps The Presence of Absence Dan Dubowitz

manchester university press

the peeps The Presence of Absence The Cutting Room & Ancoats Stories Dan Dubowitz

manchester university press

the peeps:

contents

The Presence of Absence

fore word richard leese i n t r o d u c t i o n ly n f e n t o n

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“... Over my dead body are you building that sculpture”

PEEPS :

c anal priv y royal pa ssage dixon’s resonator murr ay ’s kl a xon mary ’s room pickleome ter machine room under ne w management dan dubowit z

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otherwise known as the tipping point

THE CUTTING ROOM pl a some ter jac tin floats ephemer al clocking off to be named timepiece henry s tree t tunnel drive governor filed af terword robert hough acknowledgments

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foreword

I first met Dan Dubowitz in 2003 when I opened an exhibition on the tram platforms at Piccadilly Station. When I asked what it was about, I was told it included a series of images in light boxes made from photos taken inside the derelict buildings. I have to say I was a bit sceptical that advertising decay on a grand scale was a good idea, how would that help regeneration? This was before I saw the images he had produced. Chatting to Dan after the opening, he explained that he was just starting out on his work in Ancoats and I must admit I was looking forward to seeing what he would do next. Later I read a comment, I think it was in the Times, that the exhibition was the best free art show running in the UK. This book tells the story of Dan’s journey through Ancoats and the artworks he produced as a consequence. He began by making a book the Presence of Absence recording the stories and some of the images that he went on to exhibit at Piccadilly Station. He then turned to producing his series of The Peeps installations throughout the buildings and streets of Ancoats. His latest work, the focal point to Ancoats’ new square, also gives it its name – The Cutting Room. Dan brought a fresh pair of eyes to Ancoats, he helped us to see both the latent potential and the cultural history that resonated in these buildings on the cusp of transformation and in the process, helped Manchester reengage with it.

Richard Leese Leader, Manchester City Council February 2010

“...over my dead body are you building that sculpture” the subtle art of cultural masterplanning

To me, the really special thing about Manchester is that it was built on its openness to new ideas, technologies, peoples and entrepreneurship. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Manchester has been flattered the world over for the last 200 or so years. Towns and cities in the far-flung corners of the world have been called Manchester in the hope that they would follow its success. The very word Manchester became synonymous with free thinking, modernity, innovation and success: Manchester Goods were the best that modern technology could produce. It is no accident that many of the great names of 19th and 20th centuries came to Manchester, from the scientists and inventors such as Kelvin and Dalton (are these the right people?) to the political philosophers and commentators such as Engels and Marx, it was the birthplace of capitalism and free trade, and ironically, where the theories that led to the birth of communism were formed. Fast forward to today – Manchester’s impressive renaissance as a post industrial modern city: those same qualities are still here, focussing on 21st century innovation – still a magnet for free thinking, creativity and people who want to be a part of an emerging post industrial modern city. Ancoats, Manchester’s first industrial suburb, reflects the fortunes of the City that first shaped it – in its heyday, the world price of spun cotton was set by the all powerful mill owners of Redhill Street. The quality of their product was unrivalled and the need to remain at the top of the game provided the incentive to embrace new technologies to increase efficiency and keep costs down. As the world markets for cotton matured and changed, so too did the fortunes of those businesses that had once dominated world markets. Mill development ceased in the early 1900s and by the 1950’s the production of spun cotton had all but vanished. From the ’50s to the ’80s the rag trade occupied the mills, but over time, they mostly closed down or moved on.

The final nail in the coffin for the Ancoats Mills came from a strange source – Manchester’s first Olympic bid. Several of the building owners decided they would make more money selling vacant buildings for the Olympics than by receiving rents, so the businesses were turfed out, losing both jobs and informal caretakers in the process. When the bid eventually failed, the mills were left abandoned and their decline accelerated. Back in the 60’s the many residents were moved out of the area in a slum clearance programme, leaving Ancoats with a fraction of its population and areas of cleared land and buildings. It became synonymous with images of decay, dereliction, crime and abandonment. Not only was Ancoats itself an investment free zone, it cast a long shadow on neighbouring areas, including what was then the outer fringe of the city centre. Given the City’s ambitions to grow and connect with its immediate suburbs, connecting local people to jobs, amenities and the opportunities that were emerging in the city, it became imperative that something to be done to arrest and reverse the fortunes of Ancoats. In 1989 Ancoats was designated a Conservation Area. Even after the ravages of arson and dereliction had taken its toll, in the mid 90’s this part of Ancoats still boasted a high concentration of listed buildings – all of them on English Heritage’s list of the 100 buildings most at risk in the UK. In parallel with the City realising that something should be done, local people and others committed to the rescue of historic fabric, also felt the need to take more direct action to save what was left of the area’s heritage. In 1996, the City came together with those groups and 2 organisations were formed: the Ancoats Urban Village Company and the Ancoats Buildings Preservation Trust, the former a company the latter a charitable trust, providing opportunities to tap into both public/private investment and charitable funding. I joined the Ancoats Urban Village Company (later subsumed into New East Manchester) in 1998 to oversee the regeneration of the area. We were faced with highly fragmented ownerships (in excess of 200 across 50 acres) including a substantial number of overseas and therefore absentee, owners. The vision we developed to reverse the area’s decline was relatively simple: to reverse the decline and regenerate the area as an extension to the City containing a vibrant mix of uses that would • provide an attractive place to live, work and visit

• safeguard, protect and enhance the built heritage • promote the above to ensure a sustainable, diverse and integrated residential and business community the strategy we developed centred around 3 main actions that we believed would help deliver that vision: • renew the public realm • remove uncertainty through bringing land ownerships together (ie Compulsory Purchase Order) • guide investment through the production of Supplementary Planning Guidance This book deals with the transformation of the public realm, in particular how the inclusion of art and an artist as an integral element, influenced and enriched the process, as well as the end result.

Why is the public realm so important? I was first awakened to its influence for good or ill in the late 80’s when I worked on the redevelopment of Hulme, one of Manchester’s first big physical and socio-economic regeneration projects. The 70’s redevelopment that had promised so much, failed, in part because the residents became disconnected with their own neighbourhoods and no longer felt the streets and spaces between buildings were theirs to use and enjoy. As a consequence, their engagement in the redesign of their area began with a fortress mentality, wanting high walls and fences that would have left the streets and spaces desolate, bereft of passive supervision as well as any sense of belonging...neighbourhood...place. The battle to reclaim the streets and spaces often waged long into the night! Around this time, I visited Barcelona and was deeply impressed both with the quality of the public realm and how art had been used to uplift the spirit within it. I came away with the feeling that Barcelonians walked at least 2 inches taller as a result of the pride they had and the joy they felt just being out on the streets of their city. I wanted to bring this sense of place and belonging to Ancoats.

Easier said than done, where do you start? I knew how to assemble a team to design and build stuff, but I didn’t have the first idea about engaging or engaging with, an artist. I took the easy way out and started with the safe ground of assembling the landscape architect, engineer and QS and told them that I wanted art in Ancoats to be a key part of the process and that they should “sort out how to do it”. They sensibly responded with a competition based on a brief to produce a design for a canal side space in the area. There were some crossed wires about that brief, I had intended to use it simply to choose the artist we wanted to work with, the team thought we would use that design to deliver a piece of work. [Enter stage left, Dan for his first real discussion with me after being selected] dan I’d like to talk to you about cultural masterplanning [Lyn putting a hand up to stop him talking] lyn Before you go any further, over my dead body are you building that sculpture dan Good, that’s a relief, I think we really need to do something completely different here” [Lyn, wind taken from her sails] lyn Oh....right, good....erm.

You get the picture. We talked some more and we both realised that no amount of talking was going to get us to a point where we wouldn’t find the answer there and then, to what art should be in Ancoats, so I told Dan to go away and get under the skin of the place and then come back with his idea(s). We didn’t stop talking, that’s impossible for Dan, he is irrepressible and he collects people and things at a rate of knots I have never before encountered. lyn Dan, what is all that stuff in your studio and why do you always walk about with a camera? dan it’s how I get to know a place, I’m completely manic and this is the only thing that makes me stand still and really take things in – the stuff well, if I didn’t grab it, it was heading straight into a skip.

Boy oh boy did he get under the skin of the place and the people.

[Some time later, Dan enters (stage left again)] lyn Hi Dan, so what are we going to do then? dan Something subtle lyn Subtle? dan Yes subtle, something you have to stumble across...discover... lyn Fantastic! I like subtle...

The design team were already passionate about the work they were doing, Dan increased that passion through his enthusiasm and his desire to include the whole team in developing his approach to delivering art as an integral part of Ancoats’ renewal. For me, it harked back to the traditional spirit of Manchester as a place of innovation and invention, the team became tighter and more committed to making Ancoats a place that people could and would love. It would have been so easy to do what would have sufficed in an area that had seen nothing but neglect for so long, but the spirit that developed within the wider team that then developed meant that “sufficient” was never on the agenda. So, against the backdrop of 14 listed buildings, a designated Conservation Area, a vociferous heritage lobby (including potential World Heritage status), a limited budget and lots of people with very strong opinions. Dan did his stuff...

So, What is Cultural Masterplanning then? (Me? I know nothing about art, but I know what I like.......) The conversation Dan tried to have with me when we first met, became a recurring topic between us over the years and I’m not sure that we have concluded even now, exactly what it means. Like art itself, it’s a difficult thing to pin down. In Ancoats, we had a clear intention from the outset that art would be embedded into the area as public investment was rolled out, but quite how this would be achieved, we had no idea. It would have been easy to wallow in the past in a way that would not have connected to the present, but we needed to recognise and celebrate the fact that Ancoats continues to have a life that is every bit as relevant as what has gone before. Arguably, the role of

a Cultural Masterplanner is to ensure that in re-making places, the threads of culture that provide a sense of place and belonging, are drawn through to connect old and new. The form that may take will vary from place to place. So how do we pin it down and work out whether art is value for money and delivers real benefit? The mechanisms used to measure, monitor and appraise don’t really adapt well to measuring art and culture, yet we ignore the importance of culture in society at our peril. In the current economic climate when choices are pretty stark, the argument that “it’s the economy stupid” is difficult to gainsay, but our response to addressing that issue can choose to recognise that alongside some of the instant fixes, the slow burn of embedding a cultural dimension to what we do, will help in so many ways to ensure that the quick fixes don’t burn themselves out leaving no lasting benefit. To quote Canon Ann Easter “where would we be without music and stories and pictures? We need a tapestry that’s bigger than our own vision on which to hang the stories of our lives, we need ways to interpret life’s incredible joys and destructive unfairnesses ....”

pe e p s

PEEP :

c anal priv y

l o c at i o n r e d h i l l s t r e e t

toilet story part 1 The bridge pier had been extended at some point to formalise and make private a public toilet. Presumably before it was built it was a popular spot out of site to pee in the canal too or from work. So a little enclosure was built so this unsightly urination could take place out of site and out of mins of the prim and proper great and good of Ancoats. Of course the health risks to the public of peeing into the canal although well understood at this time, and the canal saw many a drunk fall into them at night, were not of concern to the builders of this urinal. Men peed against the wall, and the porcelaine urinal drained straight into the canal. toilet story part 2 Once we understood the toilet and how it was a wee gem that remained of what made ancoats, no one in the core design team team doubted that if something interesting could be made of this space it would be interesting to retain it. To my delight, the Ancoats Building Preservation Trust that had once been the catalyst to regenerating the area, and under its current director opposed the retaining of this walled up toilet, arguied that it was more important to clear entirely the view to the bridge. This opposition was mana from heaven as it brought out into the

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the peeps: the presence of absence

open the heritage debate. What were we doing here in Ancoats and why. Were we creating a museum piece? A heritage trail. Which bits are heritage anyway? Why is a toilet that tells the story of every day life in ancoats and one of the last such modest and accessible bits of infrastructure unimportant and overlooked? Why is an attempt to reconstruct a view of what you think something once looked like more important than presencing the complexities of a range of histories, stories and uses. A key decision had been made to rebuild ancoats as a living place and where a modern contemporary intervention which worked with the existing fabric was possible and worked this would be favoured over a historical reconstruction or vernacular approach. This debate over the toilet was for me the beginning of many such crunch points that shaped responses to questions that needed to be addresses over the comming years. How do we respond to increasingly out of touch attempts to intervene in the areas development by the Ancoats building preservation trust, how would we deal with the current shortlisting of the area as a world heritage site, do we need to be concerned about not satisfying Prince Charles and losing our â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;urban village statusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;....

PEEP :

royal pa ssage

l o c at i o n h e n r y s t r e e t

It all started with a phone call on a Thursday night from the engineer Stephen O’Malley. ‘Dan, the contractors doing the road on Henry Street have uncovered a brick arched tunnel under Henry Street. We’ve been asked to sign off on 28 metres cubed of concrete to fill it in Monday so they can carry on with the road. I thought you’d like to see it, its walled up at either end, we’re going to break into it in the morning if you want to come and have a look at it. Is the pope a catholic? I answered. When I arrived I was greeted by one of my Ancoats favourites, archaeologist xxxxx, who’s donned a shiney new red jump suit for the occasion, his head in a hole in the pavement, bum

in the air, making noises of excitement I though only David Bellamy was capable. 10 minutes later we were breaking down a wall to get in to the brick lined tunnel with a stone flag floor and a plethora of stalactites dripping from the ceiling. Another 10 minutes and I was asking the contractor if there was not another stretch of road he could be getting on with for a few days while I stared at my navel and tried to work out why we were keeping this tunnel? Later that day I took Searfino di Felice over to see the tunnel. In true Serafino style he couldn’t contain his excitement and brought the street and the meaning of various elements. I know this tunnel, he said, you see that nook there, there was a bell there, it was first in the bell tower up there on the corner of royal Mills, then after a fire and to celebrate the visit of Albert. It was resited here. Now let me tell me what that bell was about. Working in these mills wasn’t like work today. It was a lock in and a

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lock out. When that bell rang at the beginning of a shift the gates were closed and you stayed in for the day. These streets weren’t safe for the mill products, access in and out of the mill was tightly controlled. If you weren’t here when the bell rang and the gates were shut, that’s it, you lost your job, no second chances. So when the mills expanded they swallowed up streets, but when that wasnt possible, they would tunnel under them and build walkways over them so they could move produce and workers between the sites without the risk of taking their products into Ancoats’ streets. The overhead wakways were for workers, the underground walkways were for xxxxxxxxxxx

the peeps: the presence of absence

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the peeps: the presence of absence

Walled up at both ends. A static space that moves ever so slightly.

ZENITH OF DECLINE II Suspended in a state of semi-dereliction, the mill buildings wait. But there is constant movement in this attempted stillness.

PEEP :

dixon’s resonator

l o c at i o n d i x o n ’ s

Within sealed confinement, change continues – the buildings are incapable of remaining static. Nothing we do to them will make them immune to change. And with each change another layer of history is added; another surface created; another story told.

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the peeps: the presence of absence

PEEP :

murr ay â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kl a xon

l o c at i o n m u r r ay â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s m i l l

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the peeps: the presence of absence

caption in spot varnish only ab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae velit lis volum que recta il iat.

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the peeps: the presence of absence

PEEP :

MARY â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ROOM

l o c at i o n m u r r ay â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s m i l l

occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae.

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the peeps: the presence of absence

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the peeps: refiguring ancoats

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A distillation of that time passing ...

the absence, I need that absence goneâ&#x20AC;?

PEEP :

PICKLEOMETER

l o c at i o n m u r r ay â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s m i l l

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the peeps: the presence of absence

PEEP :

machine room

l o c at i o n j a c t i n h o u s e

Imi, as deri venis ius et, ut utatur mostrupIs maio. Et volorector rectemped utemolorerro enet voluptas disqui ut et etur? Esti od moles exceremos essunt et fugiat

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the peeps: the presence of absence

“ancoats was at its tipping point ...” It was also turning itself inside out and stripping itself bare

For the first year I lived out of a studio in Ancoats and my brief was to get under the skin of the place. The studio was in one of the first buildings in the area to be redeveloped, it had been sand blasted to within an inch of its life. It smelt and looked fresh and new which made a striking contrast to the streets and mills outside – beyond it’s high security mesh and gates with the must and surfaces that revealed centuries of work and living in their patina. Walking the streets or as one of the last surviving businesses or diaspora of Ancoats folk you wouldn’t see it, but inside the Ancoats Urban Village Company, the phone rang off the hook, the CPO had really changed things and developers were starting fights over the last scraps, the lion’s share of sites were already being planned out. My first few months living and working in Ancoats transformed my understanding and perceptions of the area completely from what I had made of it as a visitor. The buildings seen casually from the streets had not spoken to me of their personal histories, and the area seemed dead. With each day’s forage another layer of Ancoats was peeled back to reveal memories and experiences, and little vestiges of life ticking on. The first year of work in Ancoats, which laid the foundation for the two long-term projects to be built into the area over the following 6 years as it was rebuilt, resulted in a series of artworks that collectively were called ‘The Presence of Absence’. For me, the project started when sitting in the studio one day I heard an almighty crashing going on in Murrays Mill, and as I looked bleary eyed out of the studio window, I saw sewing machines, then machinery, then boxes that spilt their loads of buttons, neck ties and school uniforms as they hurled towards the ground. Next it was rolls of fabric, then the trolleys, then the doors and the partition walls, then I picked up my camera and got over there. In Manchester this is known as ditching; a team of men some characterised by their unemployability as labourers had been armed with crowbars and clubs to strip out the building floor by floor. A hole was knocked out to floor level at one end of the building, and the contents of each mill floor was moved to that end, then everything was hurled out into the courtyard until the mill was stripped bare, then they moved to the next floor. I made friends with the foreman of this and the other sites where ditching was soon underway, and armed myself with my camera and a box of red patent leather belts. I went into battle, dawn to

dusk to save what I could by tying a belt around it, staying one floor ahead of the ditchers. Ancoats was at its tipping point in more than one way, it was also turning itself inside out and stripping itself bare. There was little I could do but save a few elements and bear witness before it was all gone. The projects I was interested in making were beginning to take shape. There were vestiges of life in different forms battling on in the mills. How could some of these be nurtured and survive this cleansing stage of the transition, what could be retained and what place could it have in the new Ancoats as the rebuilding part of remaking the area took place? I knew I could capture a moment in a photograph, write what I was witnessing, record Ancoats stories from the diaspora of mill workers, owners, residents, I could keep artefacts, but I also knew already that this would not be enough, as it would not directly lead to a continuity of culture, to works that presence the former Ancoats in the new Ancoats in a meaningful way. I had some thinking to do. (more here on though process, what it is to make this stuff permanent, needs to be experienced, a living part of the city my work was projected to be wanted it to be an experience, a physical part of what was made. The answer of course never comes where you are looking directly for it, for Ancoats, it came with the discoveries in short succession of several entire rooms that had been walled up and were discovered as part of the ditching. the coin the schmutter 17a One day the ditchers in Jactin House were all a buzz, they had been knocking down a partition wall to discover that it concealed a room that had been walled up, more were found in Royal and Murrays Mills, then an entire building sandwiched between two others, one room wide on Blossom Street. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just rooms, there were all sorts of nooks and crannies and cavities that came to light. These really interested me. Then one day I got a phone call about a disused tunnel between two mills. Bums in the air, we all poked our heads into this dark and damp space, and eventually went in search of its ends, one end we could break into from Royal Mills and I had a powerful dejavu as we walked in, that turned out to be an actual memory of an underground arched temple I had visited at the mouth of the mythical River Styx in Greece. Already on my radar was: a marooned overhead walkway that no longer connected anything, scheduled for demolition: a bell tower that was empty and never had bells: and a walled upsteaming urinal that drained into the canal. The beginnings of a project for areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remaking, that would hold fragments from the Ancoats being cleaned?? can we think of a different word...cleared?? and find them a place and a space to live on in the new Ancoats, was emerging. continues on page x

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the peeps: refiguring ancoats

continues from page x The project was taking its own shape, quite literally emerging out of the place and the rebuilding programme, things were just appearing, and once I had my eye in, more and more things revealed themselves. The arrival of the archaeologists was a godsend, not only did they unveil mounds of earth that revealed strata of fabric like geological ages, they found and made explicit so much they became somehow the antidote to the ditchers. Things weren’t just uncovered, new aspects and expressions of Ancoats began to reveal or express themselves, a coin would fall from above on to an archaeologists excavation grid, a walled up toilet would steam, a mechanism would be found that still turned, bunny rabbits hopped across a self-forested roof, a stopped clock told the right time. When I was taking photographs, I moved increasingly to longer and longer exposures, some required me to try and remain motionless for 30 minutes or more, and in this time I had the opportunity to slow down and reflect on these derelict spaces and what they had to say. Two pieces of work from this period of getting under the skin of Ancoats, when set along side one another, captured the moment of Ancoats’ turning point. They were a series of photographs called the Presence of Absence and a selection of 10 uninterrupted segments from recordings of meetings and encounters with Ancoats folk. In late 2003 and through 2004 the images were exhibited in light boxes and the stories were broadcast to unsuspecting passengers awaiting their trains on a platform in Manchester’s Piccadilly station . I had got under the skin of the place, and in the walled up and lost spaces of Ancoats a project had presented itself that could work towards physically building a continunity of culture into the area. There was an opportunity for a permanent project here that would be an embedded and integral part of the regeneration. There was no particular reason or benefit in describing it as ‘Art’ and there was no precedent for the commission and funding structure that I had encountered. The proposal was that I now formally join the public realm design team, in which I was already a defacto member, and that works as they evolved were defined as and funded with the rest of the public realm build. The public realm renewal would include as part of remaking the streets and the public spaces of Ancoats, components that would address these ‘left overs’ that were emerging, retaining them in perpetuity as public space. I didn’t know yet what the project was, but I had some starting points. It would do something for and with these spaces discovered, and those that would follow. It would be a piece of work that had many sites across the whole area, that may be very simple when seen individually (looking through a hole in a wall) but when experienced together as a whole, would make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, a project that added a new and different layer of meaning and experience to walking through and being in Ancoats. This is how the Peeps project and later the Cutting Room project came into being.

PEEP :

PLASMOMETER

l o c at i o n d i x o n â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s

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the peeps: the presence of absence

PEEP :

jac tin floats

l o c at i o n j a c t i n h o u s e

Imi, as deri venis ius et, ut utatur mostrupIs maio. Et volorector rectemped utemolorerro enet voluptas disqui ut et etur? Esti od moles exceremos essunt et fugiat.

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the peeps: the presence of absence

“Sir, This is my last report from the Men’s Home. At the end of the month we close our doors, and maintain only a nucleus until the building is disposed of. Before this happens, I should like to say something of the course we have run during the 23 years I have been at the home. Many of this Committee have known the place only in these last difficult years of change and frustration, and may be unaware of the scope of the humanitarian work it has done through peace, war, boom and slump. ……… It was a time of slump. Three hundred men were sleeping in the Home each, and every night. Of these a hundred were occupying free beds. The workyard was finding daily work for 75 men. Nearly 100 were paying sixpence for their nightly beds and being given a simple free breakfast along with a bed. Each dinner hour sixty or seventy relieved free soup. Each Friday night and Sunday afternoon, we had 300 men in the Lesser Hall, and each time gave them tea and buns. They ate and drank while we sang and prayed. Sometimes they heckled. The Stephenson Square orators used to come to garner ammunition for their subsequent address from their soap boxes. As they came to my meeting, now and then I went to theirs, and meekly heard myself called all manner of names for half an hour. It ensured one thing – I should have a good crowd the next Sunday. ……… But ‘the mill cannot grind with the water that is passed’. The second world war and the Welfare State have created new conditions in which the work we have been doing on a purely social side has become outmoded. It has never been made impossible. Whatever is to be done for men now will have to be done along different lines. Not that the problems have disappeared. The grinding poverty, the hopelessness of prolonged unemployment have gone, but so, at present, has some of the independence that marked the men even in the worst of the slump. For, let me say it, if I may, there was something about the old villains we used to have that one could love more quickly and easily than one can the state helped misfits of today. They didn’t cling so much. You always felt that, if you helped them to stand on their own feet, at least they had feet to stand on. I trust that the Committee will not feel that this chapter of our work ends in failure. It ends, because we must change with changing circumstances. It has been a considerable slice of my own life, and now it finishes, I recall a field I sowed down to permanent pasture just before I came here. All the grasses grew – the timothy, coltsfoot, ryegrass and others – with the exception of the close wild clover. The field therefore scalded each summer, and when the need was greatest was all burnt up. Six years later, the man then farming it in the great slump, made one of those gestures common to men who live by buying manures largely, and dressing the whole of the land. The next year, the dormant clover sprang to life, and the field stood green and lush in midsummer. So I trust will God sprout the tardy seed sowed at our Men’s Home, for “in His will is our peace”.” Gerald Carpenter’s final report The Hood Street Men’s Methodist Home dated June 1st 1951

PEEP :

ephemer al

s p e c i f i c at i o n

receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel

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the peeps: refiguring ancoats

PEEP :

CLOCKING OFF

l o c at i o n l o o m s t r e e t

Imi, as deri venis ius et, ut utatur mostrupIs maio. Et volorector rectemped utemolorerro enet voluptas disqui ut et etur? Esti od moles exceremos essunt et fugiat 155 words from interviews or key players Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio

conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae.

116 | 3

the peeps: the presence of absence

PEEP :

timepiece

l o c at i o n s i l k s t r e e t / g e r m a n wa r e h o u s e

126 | 3

the peeps: refiguring ancoats

PEEP :

HENRY STREET TUNNEL

s p e c i f i c at i o n

Imi, as deri venis ius et, ut utatur mostrupIs maio. Et volorector rectemped utemolorerro enet voluptas disqui ut et etur? Esti od moles exceremos essunt et fugiat

130 | 3

the peeps: refiguring ancoats

6|7

refiguring ancoats

PEEP :

drive

l o c at i o n g e o l e i g h s t r e e t s c h o o l

Imi, as deri venis ius et, ut utatur mostrupIs maio. Et volorector rectemped utemolorerro enet voluptas disqui ut et etur? Esti od moles exceremos essunt et fugiat Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte

134 | 3

the peeps: refiguring ancoats

138 | 3

the peeps: refiguring ancoats

INSTALLATION :

GOVERNOR FIELD

l o c at i o n s t p e t e r â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s c h u r c h

142 | 3

the peeps: refiguring ancoats

Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae.

148 | 3

the peeps: the presence of absence

the cast The players

scene

the cut ting pl an

Lyn Fenton Stefan Brzozowski Martin Stockley/Stephen Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Malley Paul Shirley Smith/Irina Brune/Robert Camlin Dan Dubowitz

scene

the peeps

Dan Wrightson Pickle Ellison Mary Wardle Noel Sharkey David Ralston Dan Dubowitz

scene

making the cut ting pl an and the peeps

Pickle Ellison Pete Kerr David Ralston Andy Firman Davy McCready Ivan Ellison Andrew Scantlebury Brian Caster Simon Hopkins Phil Bell Dan Dubowitz

155 words from interviews or key players Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. 155 words from interviews or key players Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. 155 words from interviews or key players Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat.

doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat.

Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Anienihil mosapel ignates endusamus eosam aut opta doluptati quos modis maximet am et maximax imagnam eossitat oditi res modio volori officae rferferia velit lis volum que recta il ilisciat. Onse doluptati bea sapiet militi ut quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci quias dolores tiberum ni aut harum estiassunt aut vel int faccum, nobitia doluptam, senist erci occum rehendae commoluptas recte res doluptae. Expliquia core volorer umquae sita consedi offictenis ium que receperia volore accae dolorio conetur as maxime necta sunte occabor Etumquiatur magnitae volorpore velistem lab im alit aliat. Etumquiatur magnitae