This is not an Empty Space

For This is not an Empty Space, we took over the empty ground floor of Melbourne Works, the last working (but declining) mill in Hebden Bridge.

The interior wall of the mill, which backed on to the hillside, had hundreds of mysterious holes, full of soil , some running with water. It was as if the hillside was trying to force its way through the holes, into the mill. The whole wall was extremely damp and alive, the space smelt strongly of mould, it wasn’t a space you wanted to hang around too long.  I dug up and planted 50 living local saplings into these existing holes. I  made two seductive, gold fountains (using the same gold metal sheet that I had used on “Misfit” in 2008) by hammering and shaping the foil , I placed one next to the wall  running with water and the other in a swampy hole in the stone flagged floor. Water featured in many different forms throughout the exhibition and , of course, not just in the work but running , trickling , seeping and dripping into the space itself. The fountains had a very temporary, but exotic, glamorous look to them. The saplings looked perky and fresh. The wall was  both glistening and slick with patches of mould and fresh moss growth – and slimy and disintegrating with decay and neglect.

the artists were myself, Alice Bradshaw, Julia Breit, Jenni Danson,Vincent James, Kelly Loughlin,  Jon Mitton, Sam McLoughlin, Pitikasem Nilavongse, David Pugh, Nitis Wanichaboon

the installation was very hard to photograph as it was so dark, even with the halogen lights . The two fountains framing the sapling plugs were about 15 metres apart.
dry fountain, wet wall
50 holes in the wet , decaying and mouldy wall were plugged with fresh saplings that I “borrowed” from the woods nearby- bringing the outside in and challenging the view that the building is not “alive”. The saplings thrived in the damp atmosphere.