’30 years later’
https://30yearson2020.wordpress.com/
My trip to visit my home city of Derby this year was of significance as thirty years ago I turned sixteen, I started my first job, my Dad married my step mum and I would soon move out of my family home. Although I’d been back to Derby on many occasions, I’d only really stayed at my parents and not taken the time to walk the streets I’d grown up in. For the Landings: Metamorphosis exhibition I decided to create a mini side project that looked at the environment that shaped the person I am today from the house I grew up in to the site of the factory where I first worked making toys.
One of my enduring memories is that of my dad building or repairing things in the back garden or in the shed. I’d often help by holding down a piece of wood or occasionally I’d be allowed to use the power tools, circular saw or drills. My dad’s hands, to me, seemed big, strong and tough. Something I’ve always done is look and compare them to my own, often wondering if my smaller softer hands would be a disappointment. Now as my dad approaches eighty, I can’t help but look at how his hands, now bend with rheumatism, look frail and fragile.
The site of the toy factory where I first worked has now been redeveloped and is now part of the university of Derby. I didn’t work at the factory long, I soon decided that I would go to college then later university. I was the first (and only) in my family to go to university. When I left the toy factory, a leaving party, we did the ‘Mile’. The ‘Mile’ is a road that leads into the city centre consisting of around 10 pubs starting with the Travellers Rest, the aim being to take a drink in each pub. This is something of a rite of passage for Derby folk and not for the faint hearted.
I moved out of home at seventeen to live with my first serious girlfriend into a small terraced house, not too dissimilar to my grandparents’ house. My earliest memories, in the late 70’s, of were of visiting my grandparents in their modest red brick terraced house, many of which were demolished in the early 80’s. Back then the living room would be kept at its best for ‘special’ visitors, family and friends would have to use the alleyway and ‘come round back’. I recall how they only had an outside toilet and tin bath. Moving to a simple house wasn’t a conscious effort rather on of necessity as these old, smaller houses tended to be much cheaper. I only lived here a year before moving to London to attend art college.
On my walks around the city it has become evident that the city has swept away much of its architectural heritage from the vernacular terraced housing to the Art Deco theatres. As the populous has grown the city has developed without much consideration to the wellbeing of its residents. Views across the city are now cramped and obscured by ill-conceived architecture. Structures that are not designed to last. The city has metamorphosed from an industrious, productive beautiful city to a chaotic space, designed for profit. Gone are the grand hotels and concert halls to be replaced with casinos and shopping malls.
The Space Between 