Berets, moustaches and a Taylor Marsden public intervention in Walsall

Today I took part in the one day residency at New Art Gallery Walsall as part of INTERЯOGATION:WALSALL where myself and Rachel Marsden collaborated in the INTERЯOGATION:COLLABORATION day. We undertook our collaborative mission as Agent Taylor and Agent Marsden; complete with berets, moustaches, t-shirts, utility belts and ID badges! Although I think I lost my badge somewhere along the journey : (   ...

The day was really really successful and I feel really positive and inspired by the experience! Myself and Agent Marsden created an (inteR)textual dialogue with the public of Walsall, in order to interrogate the identity of Walsall as a post-industrial town.

We created an INTERЯOGATION STATION in the Gallery Square which we used as a base for our intervention. We got members of the public to collaborate with us by constructing words made out of the prefix (inteR) to represent what Walsall meant to them. The people we met were amazing - all reflecting a sense of the (inteR)cultural, (inteR)personal and (inteR)action - in turn allowing us to reflect on our textual strategy. There was one chap in particular who's collaboration was poignant and profound; he said that the word that represents walsall to him is 'peace' - as he had watched his 18 year old daughter grow up and mature in the town. It made me realise right then, the complexity of personal hstories that create a community ...

We disseminated our findings over a cup of tea and a (very nice!) piece of cake and installed our findings in the interrogation room in the gallery. We ended up with polaroids, images of Walsall from the view of the gallery that had been photoshopped (or interrogated!) and other things we had collected from the day. We found that as we began to install our findings, that the images (inteR)linked together; also interlinking with the findings of the other agents.

I am planning to create a page of the project findings for the day on my website, so watch out for all of the images and re-reflections or (inteR)reflections of today! As for now, I am going to put my feet up and avoid anything that is related to the word (inteR) for the rest of (what is left of) the day ...