Three days ago, I took some preliminary shots of the large tract of land the Stirling council has deemed fit to clear next to the train station and the recently built Ikea complex. I've narrowed down the selection to ten photos I feel are quite effective in their own individual ways, and from these I suppose I should select just one or two for mid-semester reviews. I've listed them below, but first I'd like to briefly mention why I chose this site as a subject for art.
(I can't seem to fit this anywhere else, but I photographed it in the early evening in an attempt to represent some of the contradictions of the subject in aesthetic terms. Uninviting urban blight should, according to aesthetic doctrine, be represented in stark, uncompromising light and darkness - sometime around midday. But since the council has decided that the space should look as it does, for an indefinite period of time, blight and barrenness would seem to be its view of what constitutes an appropriate urban aesthetic, so I decided the effects of a more intimate, dusky evening light would illuminate (if you will) some of the conceptual and physical contradictions of the space with the establishments (conflicted) ideals in mind. )
Until five to ten years ago, most of the space photographed was part of a small, isolated wetland. Because of its location, next to an often congested freeway entrance off Cedric Street, it was something several hundred, perhaps thousands of people recognised as part of their daily commute - it could be termed a component of their peripheral (visual) commute. Over time, after the completion of the train station some thirty years ago, pedestrian trails developed through it and spaces of informal congregation appeared, small clearings littered with beer bottles, cardboard, even old loungechairs. The land, cut off from other wetlands by suburban development in the forties and fifties, became a vernacular space, out of the council's grasp, given to the public as an informal utility.In hindsight, it would seem that the Stirling Council would not have appreciated having a patch of possibly quite profitable land out of its direct control, and its response parrots the infamous, desructive absurdity of the Vietnam War: "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it". And so, its vegetation cleared, the space, now a massive vacant lot of silted yellow sand to match the dunes next to the train station, waits in limbo for something of use to be put on top of it, while the pedestrian traffic has undefeatedly reasserted its network of trails and destroyed large tracts of the chain-link fence surrounding it. Rubbish is beginning to accumulate at its boundaries, while the commuter and resident is left to view the irony of wasted space transformed into even more wasteful space as a threatening gesture of divine authority invested in the local government to terraform at will. I take it as a threat, it almost seems like a symbol of the destruction of the first community of young people and children who settled in the area during the fifties and sixties, a process I grew up watching happen in the nineties from the margins.
I feel that this image particularly succeeds at representing a certain view of the development (perhaps a euphemism) from the point of view of the pedestrian. The foreground contains the remnants of the original vegetation and trails, looking out on to the barren expanse of unused, halted construction, with the eventual blight and traffic sitting quite comfortably in the distance. It contains some of the essential elements of the areas (certainly things I have always associated with it): barren, unused land, dead trees, sprawling traffic and brown grass.
The angles of this image appeal to me most, as well as the symbolic value of its composition. The tree is almost a monument to progress, or resistance to it, and the diagonal fence is also an important component of the space in its effective segregation of the unde
veloped and the developing. The reeds also seem to offer some security, made quite redundant by Ikea's imposing flatulence of colourful geometry.
One of many 'ground shots' taken from the floor of the space, the focus was mainly intended to be on the futile patch of reeds to the left and its erroneous cardboard companion in contrasted to the Ikea complex's dominance over the space. However, there are shadows from trees right and left and the fence seems to imply something I can't quite figure out.
More of the tyre tracks in this one and no fence, the Ikea sign seems to introduce the image with the weed underneath it and my gaze shifts over to the cars and houses. Perhaps someone working for the Swedish corporation could read of it a narrative of Ikea's commercial guardianship of the area's residents and its just domination of space. I almost find it unfriendly.
Much like the previous image, but without a sign for introduction or plants as metaphors. Perhaps it is closest to my original intention in seeking out this space, to merely catalogue the insurmountable and ultimately defeating barrenness effected on a population by those with authority over it and no great interest in it. The tyre tracks seem to lead somewhere as much as they go in circles.
The dilapidated fence functions, at least in my view, quite effectively as a symbol of, if not hope, certainly the comfort one receives in realising that which exercises authority still has to answer to a common higher power. In this case, the higher power is perhaps unregulated communal reaction, an uninterrupted mass of people determined to continue their commute regardless of any barrier to their path.
The return of the monument, the lone, useless pole is something of a third party. It will almost certainly be carted off and treated with impunity by council workers eventually, they don't tolerate dissenters. The shrubs are allowed room to propagate the reach of their roots and offer hope of some meagre rejuvenation of the space if they can make it past the chain link. I also prefer Ikea's distinct lack of presence in the shot, perhaps I should make a note of note including it when I return to the area later.
There's a very subtle curve in this shot I really like, in addition to the framing of the pole. I think I've found a protagonist, a role Bruce Willis could play. There is a linear conflict between two conjoined entities, corporate maneuvering and the residential mass, the divide pointed out by the architecture.
The last photo I took, from a higher angle up the slope from the road. Perhaps one of the most 'beautiful' photos of the set, it could be an attempt at irony which fell flat, but it's one of the most visible contradictions between the subject matter and its presentation. Perhaps a real estate developer may find solace in cleared land, but it doesn't sit well with a resident (or former resident).
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