Have you experienced
a 'derelict sensation'?
As a child, did you
explore forbidden,
ramshackle structures?
Did you once squat
or party in an empty
warehouse or abandoned
church? Have you
ever been fascinated
by a brooding building?
At thederelictsensation.com
we want you to write
about those experiences.
And—if the body
of writing develops
as we hope—we'd
like to include your
story in an anthology.
Photographers,
filmmakers, visual
artists, and urban
explorers have already
come forward to contribute
ideas and projects.
On May 31st we will
host a live event
in St Pancras Chambers,
a superbly grand
derelict building
in London's King's
Cross. This live
art event will feature
sculpture, installation,
sound, photography,
video art, film,
and performance that
explore ideas about
dereliction in ways
that specifically
respond to this stunning
building. The exhibition
will be open for
afternoon and evening
sessions. Guests
will be given a programme
and set free to explore
the building and
exhibition with a
drink in hand.
The films screened
will include an interview
with Michael Czerwinksi,
the unofficial artist
in residence at St
Pancras, a short
film about an anti-capitalist
Womble's expropriation
of a derelict 'Bacon
Factory', and an
interview with NORIAKI
MAEDA, a sculptor
using art to help
regenerate a church
that was destroyed
by fire. We will
also present Bego's
'close up n dirty'
study of pigeons,
Toby Waldron's evocative
exploration of kids
playing on derelict
building sites, and
Jane R. Rogers' poetic
study of the derelict
land left behind
when the USSR military
left Latvia.
Readers who can't
join us for the St
Pancras Chambers
event can find a
study of derelict
spaces at our website,
www.thederelictsensation.com
.
Larrie
Thompson presents
highly stylised pictures
of American and Canadian
ghost towns.
Terence
Nunn has included
a selection of pictures
of "bomb sites,
demolitions, and
empty shops, ...cars
abandoned for scrap,
and [pictures of]
of torn posters that
have forgotten what
... they were once
trying to say."
Eva
Bachmann contributes
photographic displays
of warehouses and
empty office blocks
which create an eerie
counterpart to London's
illegal party scene.
While we've been
overwhelmed by contributions
from visual artists,
we've received fewer
responses from writers,
though the work we
have received has
been inspirational.
Iva
Harries
traces past lives
in the remains of
a derelict cottage
in the Welsh border
country:
We meet at this hearth,
exposed by daylight
Where fire once warmed
newborn lambs
And a family name.
—from 'Pwlperran
Farm'
Steve
Thorne's adolescent
heroes escape from
a hostile world in
"'Brummagem
Rough".
Home's
a hole in the ground,
our only home. Our
only retreat from
the storm forever
roarin outside. The
Fag Hole, we call
it—one of them
old Anderson shelters
in the rubbish-filled,
brick-strewn backyard
of a derelict house
up on Frederick Street.
It's this rustin
hulk of corrugated
iron, really. Sort
of like someone's
rib-cage lyin half-buried
beneath a thick knot
of creepin ivy, beer
cans, Evo-Stik pots,
shrivelled-up glue
bags and the odd
used condom. Damp,
dark, and dirty it
may be, but it's
home.
ASmith
explores the resonances
of a derelict shed.
...like
a cave, a hermitage,
a tumbledown blackness
of slipping indeterminate
outline, edges blurred,
an old shape-shifter
hunkered down against
East Anglian wind
and rain.
We need writers to
take it further.
We are looking for
fiction and non-fiction
responses to the
theme: "What
place do derelict
buildings have in
your life and in
your community?"
The derelict aspect
you explore could
engage with ideas
of buildings, objects,
encounters, lifestyles,
aesthetics, partying,
atmospheres, politics,
the broken, the neglected,
the forlorn. That's
the invitation: to
find, explore, and
present your own
niche in the derelict.
In fact, we challenge
you to tell your
story. To find value
in the derelict undermines
the aesthetic hierarchies
and priorities of
the mainstream. To
find value in the
derelict, in whatever
way, is to make an
implicitly radical
act. Exploring the
derelict is an investigation
into the values,
aesthetics, and political
economy of the society
that forges the derelict.
Places, things, or
spaces that are derelict
have been made so
through the deliberate,
often brutal, action
of economy, fashion,
or neglect. The derelict
is a type of wilderness—space
no longer colonised
by dominant practices—within
which alternative
encounters and practices
can flourish. Dare
you visit?
©
2003 Ben Bruges
^return
to top
