Just before your train reaches Birmingham
New St. from the north, you run alongside the canal and pass several classic canal bridges and the site of Icknield Port Loop. The Post reports that the plan to develop the main cleared site has just been shelved due to the credit-crunch and the problems at British Waterways.
West Coast Main line and canal, running alongside the cleared site, with trains slowing down to enter/leave the New St. tunnel just ahead.
But I’m wondering if this represents an opportunity for artists
to present a series of temporary large works on the cleared site? Such shows would have an assured audience, in the countless people approaching Birmingham on the trains from/to the north. There’s no traffic nearby to distract, so light could be used to dramatic effect and (if structures were tall enough) could reflect in the canal. At the very least, AWM might consider laying the site with wildflower seed turf as a temporary measure, rather than letting it become a mess of scrubby buddliah and weeds for the next three years. What if the 2009 West Midlands
Meadow Gallery could be held on this highly visible inner-city site? Perhaps followed by another Festival of Xtreme Building?
Those cycling and walking and boating along the canal would, of course, also be potential audiences. The site is quite walkable, along the towpath, from Brindley Place.
by dp
09 Sep 2008 at 14:49
Hmm… can I afford the time to make further suggestions?
One: even with Pollard in Oz, and The Public in limbo, the Intervention / re:location / Radioactive crew are still around. I believe they could be regrouped and extended.
Two: AWM, English Partnerships, Colliers CRE, MADE, Arts Council et al, are well-placed to either coordinate or support an interim activity.
Three: from a theoretical perspective, intermediate use of brownfield sites should be taken up as a matter of course. There’s enough evidence to show such use as having both short and long term benefits.
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by Created in Birmingham » Icknield Port Loop for large scale artworks?
09 Sep 2008 at 16:59
[…] A good idea from D’log this afternoon — with the announcement that the Icknield Port development is being put on hold, he wonders: if this represents an opportunity for artists to present a series of temporary large works on the cleared site? […]
by site admin
09 Sep 2008 at 18:01
Another thought:- there is also a similar cleared site just north of Sandwell and Dudley train station, and another just before Wolverhampton station, which could provide a “chain” of three such temporary art sites. The Wolverhampton one, seen from the train from above, is incredibly ugly and might lend itself to (fairly cheap?) 18″ coatings of coloured sand or pebbles to form patterns. In the same way that you’d cover up an ugly yard of a terraced house by buying 10 sacks of pebbles.
by dp
09 Sep 2008 at 21:43
This is what I was getting at in point 3. Together or separately, intermediate/liminal spaces are appropriate for temporary creative appropriation. I don’t know if 1%-For-Art schemes are in place anywhere, but a portion of any landscaping and/or art budget could be spent at various points in the abandonment, demolition, dormancy, and redevelopment of a site. Or people could just pirate their way in, as we did at the old bicycle works.
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by D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Economist on the canals
17 Sep 2008 at 10:47
[…] for the survival of the British canal network, in the face of crisis at British Waterways, the recession, and pressures from both yobs and yobs-in-suits… “in the regenerated Docklands and […]
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by D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Regen WM event on arts & regen
18 Sep 2008 at 18:31
[…] you were interested by my suggestion about the use by artists of the Ickneild Port site, there’s a Regen WM Event on Thurs 25th Sept 08 at the Tower Ballroom, Birmingham… […]
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by Rag! : End of the Day Malt Goodness
17 Oct 2008 at 00:40
[…] long ago D made a suggestion about using mothballed development sites as temporary art displays. A […]