The Wall | The [Salford] Wall

The [Salford] Wall (originally The Wall)
currently 255-285 Chapel Street, Salford

Rebuilding the east flank wall of the Old Bank Theatre / Royal Liver Friendly Society building (built 1930 at 301 Chapel Street, demolished 2014) as a grassroots monument to Salford.

Previously agreed as a temporary public sculpture to last until 2016, The [Salford] Wall (once rebuilt) now has the opportunity to remain permanently on Chapel Street, at the corner of Islington Park.

The project is presently unfunded and building an infrastructure of support so that the Wall can be rebuilt, as a series of open events. No previous experience necessary, everyone welcome.

The building was originally built by Royal Liver Friendly Society amidst a time of brutal austerity as a physical and financial structure of Northern working class solidarity and mutual support. Help keep this heritage in Salford. If you can donate some time – whether cleaning bricks, helping with publicity and raising support, or would like to simply get involved, please contact Jen on:

thewallmustberebuilt@gmail.com
07766 130 860
facebook/twitter: thesalfordwall
thewallmustberebuilt.org

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Part I: January 2012 – April 2015

Initiated by artist Jen Wu
In collaboration with Islington Mill
In cooperation with: Salford City Council, English Cities Fund, Urban Vision
Support in kind: Bagnall UK
Funding: The Henry Moore Foundation, Arts Council England

And made by the voluntary efforts and incredible generosity of numerous individuals in Salford and beyond.

WEBSITE HERE

Photos: 7 December 2012 – 30 November 2014.

From e-mail to Heritage Lottery Fund, 24 Nov 2014

The Salford Wall was initiated by myself, an artist, in 2012. It is a heritage project about buildings and communities, achieved through rebuilding a section of the Old Bank Theatre which formerly stood at 301 Chapel Street, Salford.

Building 
The building (built by Royal Liver Friendly Society in 1930) was bought by Salford City Council by CPO, to be demolished as part of Salford’s current regeneration. After a period of negotiation with the council, I obtained permission to work with the demolition contractors to save the east flank wall, made entirely of brick. Through the course of the demolition works, I also managed to save the stone blocks making up the building’s facade.

The aim is to use the salvaged remnants as the building blocks for a community-built monument and open community space, anchored by the reconstruction of the Wall – 100 metres east of its original location, on a development site opposite Bexley Square. The council and English Cities Fund have allowed the project to use the site until 2016, when development is due to take place.

Community / Heritage 
Integral to the project is the opportunity for the local community and general public to co-develop and create The Salford Wall. It’s to not only rebuild a physical structure as a means of reconnecting with Chapel Street’s disappearing heritage, but to be guided by the social history and principles embedded in the building and its bricks – how and why the building was built, by working class labourers as a structure of unified care and support. It’s a history that, through the building’s origins and use, is gradually being rediscovered and encompasses not only that of Chapel Street and Salford, but has links to Liverpool (via Royal Liver) and also Manchester (the bricks came from Bradford Colliery). Its to use this history and heritage in a very real sense.

Support and development 
The project has been underway since September 2013, with funding support from Arts Council England and Henry Moore Foundation. There’s much more I can say about the building and its legacy, about how the local community has been involved thus far and how this is evolving. The project is nevertheless at a stage where it needs a further injection of support, hence approaching HLF.

It’s a slightly tricky scenario as I’d be applying as an individual, and am not the owner of the ‘building’ nor the reconstruction site. In theory, the owners are the people of Salford, via the city council. It’d be fantastic to have some guidance on how might be best to proceed, to be eligible for an HLF grant. Also, as the longevity of the project (as a monument) is still uncertain, it’d be invaluable to have your advice on the scope of what HLF might be able to support; the rebuilding process is a heritage activity in and of itself, but there is massive potential to develop and strengthen the various strands of activity within.

Dissolution of the Monasteries (unrealised)

[proposal for Frieze Projects 2014, Regents Park, London]

Sited within the Frieze grounds (ideally within the tent, possibly within a vitrine), a machine will drill into the earth. Visually evocative of both archaeological & exploratory industrial excavation, the work is addressed to current & historical contestations of land rights & usage, its ownership & transformation, the sites of protection versus destruction. It is an attempt, through land, to find where the physical & symbolic converge, to engage the boundary where art meets a broader socio-political matrix.

The work’s title refers to the act by which Henry VIII seized control of Regents Park, previously the property of Barking Abbey. After which the land was used to entertain visiting dignitaries.

The work also refers to the creation of Regents Park as we know it today – when, in 1811, the Crown didn’t renew the leases to the tenant farmers who’d been tending it for the previous 150 years, spotting instead a development opportunity. Works on Regents Park commenced in 1812 & took 26 years to complete –”a most extraordinary scene of digging, excavating, burning, & building, … more like a work of general destruction than anything else.” The digging is in part an attempt to excavate this history, through a search for potential material fragments.

The proposed excavation also alludes to fracking – in particular the situation at Barton Moss in Salford. IGas “does not yet have permission to collect any shale gas it finds” & yet protesters are being arrested for occupying public land, including a friend whose criminal act was to sing. It brought into sharp focus not only the superceding of law by financial forces in this particular part of Salford, but also the question of where exploratory drilling is allowed to happen – if there is a geological rationale for why e.g. this wouldn’t take place in London.

Event Horizon, Royal Academy of Arts, London

Event Horizon (co-curator with Anthony Gross), GSK Contemporary. Royal Academy of Arts, London. 30 October 2008 – 18 January 2009. Website HERE.

A three month ‘occupation’ creating a live immersive account of British art at the convergence of sculpture, experimental theatre and DIY social culture.

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Anchored by temporarycontemporary’s Event Horizon Social Club – a fully operational artists’ café and late-night bar as conceptual infrastructure and physical installation.

With over 20 site-specific commissions of varying duration throughout the building and out into the streets. Artists inc. Georgina Starr, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, David Medalla, Bob and Roberta Smith, Spartacus Chetwynd, Brian Griffiths, Plastique Fantastique (David Burrows & Simon O’Sullivan), Mark Titchner, Gail Pickering, Lindsay Seers, Tai Shani, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Reza Aramesh, Anthony Gross.
Additional support: Arts Council England, Henry Moore Foundation.

NIGHTCLUB, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

N I G H T C L U B
curated by Jen Wu, ICA Exhibitions

Saturday 28 June, 2008
9pm to 4am across the entire ground floor of the ICA (Lower Gallery, Cinema, Bar, Theatre, Concourse)
£12 – SOLD OUT
By special arrangement the ICA will be open until 4am. Live acts from 11pm. Dress code: come as you are, don’t hold back.

A R T I S T S :
Gang Gang Dance.(live).
Prinzhorn Dance School.(live).+.Suzi Horn.(DJ).LOST.presents.Andrea Parker.+.Colin Dale.+.Steve Bicknell COCADISCO.presents.Trevor Jackson.+.DJ Benetti.+.Rodaidh and Piers Martin.+.Team Mega Mix.+.Heartbreak.(live) NUKE THEM ALL!.with.Buster Bennett.+.Fonteyn.+.Alex Sedano.(VJ).+.The Fresh Flesh ‘Interconnected Echoes – After Hours Salon’.with.Matthew Stone (!WOWOW!).+.Princess Julia (P.I.X).+.more

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Fantastic!! Amazing! Rave on! It is a crazy feeling. Music at the ICA is the best in London! No really. Love from a happy, sweaty punter.

I love it. Mentally fucked up and happy.

– (unsolicited) comment cards left after the event

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Transforming the entire ground floor of the ICA, Nightclub invokes the spirit of club and rave subculture for an all-night freefall marathon. As the new millennium pushes forward and an inward tribalism takes hold, Nightclub revels in a collective release. In a moment of spectral hallucination, reflection, and immersion, Nightclub pushes the boundaries of the contemporary art experience as simultaneous scenes collide, escaping normal forms of identity through trance, battles, illicit encounters, unstable visions and music.

Featuring a special live performance by Brooklyn tribal-futurist noise quartet Gang Gang Dance. Stunningly beautiful, splintering, beat-driven electro-acoustic chaos, their music has been described as ‘a close relative of religion’. Straddling the art-music hybrid, their explosive sonic and visual array forges territories so invigorating and liberating it feels like protest. Gang Gang Dance were included in the Whitney Biennale 2008. Opening for Gang Gang Dance will be the elusive and reclusive Prinzhorn Dance School (DFA Records). Taking their name from a German psychiatrist and author of ‘Artistry of the Mentally Ill’ their nervy, provocatively spare music has elicited comparison to The Fall with its seething, taut intensity – ‘manic flashes from a conflicted brain that keep the line between the perceptive and the unhinged obscure’.

Alighting in the lower gallery, the ‘unbridled hedonism’ of Fonteyn and Buster Bennett‘s Nuke Them All! sets ablaze the neon post-rave apocalypse. Formerly sited in an East End strip club, their renegade attitude of bring-your-own and be-your-own art has unleashed nights of spontaneous mayhem.

The retro-futuristic Mediterranean sounds of London club night Cocadisco washes over with blissed-out electro waves, combining cinematic soundscapes, electro funk and classic Italo disco courtesy of Renaissance man and renowned DJ and producer Trevor Jackson, Rimini hotmix legend DJ Benetti, resident DJs Rodaidh & Piers Martin, and DJ duo Team Mega Mix. Dark disco hybrid Heartbreak perform a special live set hot on the heels of their Glastonbury debut. ‘It will make you dance with tears in your eyes… like bi-polar maniacs in the brink of an ecstatic panic attack’.

In the cinema, artist Matthew Stone (!WOWOW!) and friends host ‘Interconnected Echoes – An After Hours Salon’. An extension of a larger project and archive in which Matthew asks the people he admires some of the big questions in life, this open intervention features Princess Julia and other pivotal figures from London’s art and club worlds discussing everything from love, faith and changing the world to nightclubs as incubator for radical ideas.

Transporting us into a glorious hard-hitting techno afterlife will be Steve Bicknell, resident DJ and main curator of the legendary Lost events. The first to bring luminaries such as Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, and Robert Hood to the UK, Steve’s unwavering commitment to quality and innovation has shaped a scene in London and worldwide, with his own appearances ranging from the groundbreaking Energy parties to Tresor, Ostgut, The Rex, Sonar, and Tribal Gathering to name but a few. Alongside Steve, Lost presents longtime collaborators Andrea Parker and Colin Dale. From early days warming up for Tim Westwood at Gossips, Colin Dale soon became a household name as DJ for pirate station Kiss FM’s pioneering ‘Abstrakt Dance’ show which over 16 years no less than brought techno to the masses. With a reputation for seriously sinister basslines, Andrea Parker’s dark universe has been called the missing link between techno and experimental music. Her extensive history as a DJ and producer spans releases on R&S, Mo’ Wax, Quatermass and her own label Touchin Bass.

Further visual and sound analysis comes from Say Fromage plus the ICA’s very own The Experiment, with a sound installation ‘Conservational Reverb Convenience’ by sound artist and co-producer of The Experiment Kevin Quigley: experience some ‘Warhol-ique’ dialogues in the ICA’s toilets(!) Also at various sites the unique interactive slide projections of William Parker aka World of Parker will be in effect.

Nightclub is conceived by Jen Wu on behalf of ICA Exhibitions, and developed in collaboration with Jamie Eastman, ICA Music. With thanks to Piers Martin.

Photos: Davide Bozetti (courtesy ICA). Additional photos Anthony Gross, Gabriel Green.

Scenes from Meat City

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EXHIBITIONS
2001 Goldsmiths MA Degree Show, London
2002 Mirror Mirror: Video Art from the U.S. and Canada. 291 Gallery, London. Curator: Monica Biagioli.
2004 Mesmer. temporarycontemporary, London. Curator: Anthony Gross.
2005 Reassurance. SPACE, London and Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester. Curator: Yeu Lai Mo.

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Scenes from Meat City is an ongoing work. Performing myself as a character traversing a then-foreign London, it is composed of excerpts – narrative fragments from semi-staged encounters – presented on multiple monitors as part of a sculptural installation.

With little to visually distinguish my actions from those of the people around me, the vignettes comprising Scenes… attempt to occupy a space between ‘real life’ and its abstraction. As a result, these filmed ‘performances’ rely as much upon the codes and fictions of the surrounding people and places to produce the scenarios and outcomes as they do upon my insertions.

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“Jen Wu is a video performance and installation artist. Her often large and chaotic installations feature many simultaneous performance endurance video works in and amongst a setting of furniture, building materials and her own clothing. The prevalent sense is that of a fragmented real time document of unfixed identities.

In some video works Wu seems to play out a role of fashion model, presenting an ambivalent position of self-exploitation. In other works she merely documents parts of her life; sleeping, driving, sex and boredom are all presented in a tough, real-time format, allowing for glimpses of a persona but never a complete whole.

Although the works are tough and uncompromising in their lack of narrative satisfaction, the installations themselves are colourful and inclusive. The video works often read as video ‘painting’, broad brushstrokes of choreographed colours and loops, with some monitors presenting purely abstract images and lo fi textured patterns and symbols. The installations specifically engage with the viewer in the space, providing processional moments as well as areas of seating and comfort. The dense paraphernalia of furniture, vintage fur coats and fabrics have an air of turn of the century decadence, the boudoir. The building materials act as a stand-in for identity in progress/dismantled.

The aura of the social animal, the sexual libertine is forceful but compellingly at odds with the inaction and the traumatic document presented in the endurance video works. Whilst embracing the sense of the Self inhabiting the Social, Wu tears apart self worth and self-image, presenting herself often as fractured or merely blank.

Wu’s work intentionally takes for its starting point feminist performance art from the late seventies. She however goes further in her work by analysing the very notion of the Performance itself, dealing explicitly with the dichotomy of the Act, for a camera, versus the Real, the absolutely authentic. Wu does not want to ‘act’ she wants to ‘be’, but all behaviour and mediation of the self to others is inherently filtered through performance of manner and style. This difficult constant contradictory state is what Wu investigates in her challenging yet sensual works.

Jen Wu has shown in London and New York and graduated from the fine art MA in Goldsmiths College in 2001. She originally studied fine art at Harvard University under Joan Jonas, amongst others.

Wu’s background is that of the Taiwanese émigré family, growing up in a predominantly white American suburban setting. These formative years gave her a strong sense of the notion of the Other, and its exoticization, from an early age which has been a major influence in her work since.”

– text by Anthony Gross

2000

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Graduation works, Harvard BA Visual & Environmental Studies. All works 2000.

Espionne in an Empty Hourglass. 60 min single channel video on loop, plexiglass.
Performance for camera. The artist stuffs herself into a ‘box’ made from plastic sheeting, seals it airtight with tape, smokes a cigarette, unseals the container, then climbs out. The sequence is repeated two more times to comprise approximately an hour.

Nest for Espionnes. Iron, solder sticks.

The Instability of Self Supporting Structures (originally made 1998). Plywood, dry plaster.
Self-portrait. Plywood boards were cut to correspond to the dimensions of the artist’s body. Held together with clamps, the void was filled with tightly packed dry plaster. The release of the clamps brought the final work into being.

Hi. Iron armature, solder sticks, cling film, water, vegetable oil, Chinese ink, wheels.

Pollox 1-4. Plywood, wax. Each 8′ x 2′ x 4″
‘Paintings’ in wax, submerged in X-Box.
The photographs of Pollox pre-submersion were also used to create a one-off series of thermal wax prints.

X-Box. Plywood, wax, water, Chinese ink, vegetable oil. 18′ x 18′ x 4″
A structure of negation and reflection, in constant motion; the mixture of oil, ink and water representing the liquid dynamics of the space.
(The title pre-dates the arrival of the video game console and is not a reference.)