|
7/6/2015 0 Comments Park Hill Art SchoolI wanted to continue using my land camera and document my time within Park Hill using polaroids. My white washed plastered wall, different to the adjoining concrete walls and floor to ceiling windows showing the surrounding greenery made me reminiscent of Barbara Hepworth's studio in St Ives that I had visited previously. I wanted to re-create that setting in a brutalist modern building, in came the plants, pottery and tacked up polaroids. I spent my time at Park Hill exploring the area and building itself. Being from Sheffield the flats became part of the usual skyline, part that most Sheffielders would class as an eyesore. I had lived in Hyde Park flats close by for a few years so knew the area but had never spent much time within the flats vicinity, what with it's bad reputation and derelict feel. I was surprised how comfortable I was walking around the flats on my own and maybe it was attributed to the sunshine we had but it all looked rather beautiful. Keith Wilson, a tutor at university secured the site of the Scottish Queen pub in Park Hill flats as a residency for first year art and architecture students. We had the space from the 12th to the 31st May, the first week was for becoming acquainted there and from the 22nd it was open to the public. There was a core group of people that created work within the Scottish Queen throughout our time there and I believe we all gained experience of what being an artist out in the public realm meant rather than in a university setting. Opening night went really well, the excitement of everyone being in the Scottish Queen setting up work and making the place presentable was enjoyed by all. We had a flyer made by the designers at Urban Splash, it included an image of the locked room experiment at Saint Martins College (which I initially thought of the Pulp reference, it happened to be a coincidence).  I spent a lot of my time at Park Hill alone taking photos and creating work reflective of the environment I was in. Below is a selection of polaroids I took during my time there and as they dried I attached them to the wall with corner stickers made for scrap books. I felt the polaroids gave the photos a 1960's look which complemented the buildings structure. This is how they looked in situ. In the last few days I took a series of polaroids in relation to my tattoo and it's geometric shape which I believe concluded my time there. I had documented the building itself and produced work that was new to it's environment. This was a new avenue in photography for me as I've never been in a residency situation before, working mostly alone in what is practically a building site and a polaroid to create with. If I had this opportunity again I'd have liked to have spent more time there but due to essay deadlines and half term it fell on quite an awkward month but I still created a series of work that I'm pleased with. Many thanks to Keith Wilson and Leila Alexander of Urban Splash in allowing us to experience such a massive part of Sheffield's architectural history and have the freedom to do as we pleased.
|
