The Desire Paths in Sheffield

This weekend we will be out in Tudor Square, in front of the Crucible Theatre, drawing a giant map of the city centre renaming the streets of Sheffield.

As research for this, we’ve been reading The Sheffield Street Names Study Guide* by Mary Walton. It’s a really engaging tour of the city and the origins of its street names.

“Between the two roads ran several lanes, jennels, alleys and yards. A lane will admit some traffic; an alley has front doors in it; a jennel runs between the side walls of buildings; but a yard is a weird and wonderful thing.”

It’s full of great detail, from the brilliant fact that Bridge Street used to be called simply Under-The-Water because it used to flood a lot, to stuff you didn’t realise you were aware of until it’s pointed out to you: “Gate means street and Bar means gate.” (You can download it here).

It also confirms something we do all know. City centre streets were often named after a direction of travel (London Road), after the builder’s or landowner families, to commemorate military victories, or to indicate the activity or industry that they led to, what was made there. A street was known for one activity.

Street names were instructions as to what is made there, where they’ll take you, or they commemorate events from the past. But who gets to choose what events, which people, are honoured in the street names of a city?

Of course now the streets are busier, cities throng with pedestrians, and all of those people in the streets carry different hopes and dreams for their lives. Whilst there might not be as much manufacturing apparent in the streets of the city these days, there are plenty of new industries out there. And in the hearts and minds that travel along those streets, we are making the future.

So on Saturday that’s what we’re doing: commemorating the future. Renaming the streets of Sheffield after the hopes, dreams and ambitions of the people who live in them.

We hope you can come and join us.** And if you’re not in Sheffield follow our progress on Twitter and Instagram at #DesirePaths.

Third Angel presents

The Desire Paths

10am – 6pm on Saturday 1 October

(map left out until 4pm Sunday 2nd)

Tudor Square, Sheffield

Part of the Sheffield Theatre’s Fun Palaces Weekend

Commissioned by Sheffield Year of Making

Created/produced/performed by

Hannah Butterfield

Lucy Ellinson

Hilary Foster

Nicki Hobday

Liz Johnson

Gillian Lees

Alexander Kelly

Stacey Sampson

Rachael Walton

Bethany Wells

Ellie Whittaker

With documentation by

Joseph Priestly.

With thanks to everyone at Sheffield Theatres and Theatre Delicatessen.

*published by and © Sheffield Libraries Archives and Information.

First Published in 1977. Reformatted and additional images added 2011.

Download it here: http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/archives

**we’re providing rain cover, so come take shelter with us.

HillsFest: Story of the Day

INSPIRATION EXCHANGE

Hillsborough Library

HillsFest

9 July 2016

11.45am

Once I’m set up, before the Exchange opens, I half jokingly ask Sue, who works in here, if it’s okay to talk in this bit of the library? I don’t have to be quiet, do I? It’s pretty lame and predictable even as a half joke but she humours me and explains that down this end of the library – away from the computers – it’s fine to talk. They have book groups who meet here, and people often have a coffee and a chat.

Sue makes me a cup of tea.

11.55

Ten minutes later this seems a moot point –

(does ‘moot point’ mean what I think it means? It’s one of those phrases that I use because I like the sound of it and I think I know what it means, but if I had to explain its meaning to someone, what would I say? It means “pointless point”?)

 - anyway, it seems a moot point because the soundcheck on the main stage starts and all anyone in the library can hear is Michael Jackson.

12.00pm

Then, exactly five minutes later, as the Inspiration Exchange opens, the PA is turned off, and the library is very quiet. It’s the first day of HillsFest, in Hillsborough Park, and it has been raining all morning. I had been thinking the rain would drive people indoors, but if they haven’t even ventured out to the park, then there’s no-one to come inside, out of the rain. The forecast is better for tomorrow. I’m not here tomorrow.

12.05

A man wants to know if the children’s library is open. It is, it’s just that the door needs a bit more of a push.

12.07

Someone is outside somewhere, bouncing a ball against the library wall, or knocking tent pegs in.

12.08

The music is back on, but not loud enough to be identifiable.

I wonder if I’m allowed to get something to read? We are in a library after all. And I did make up the rules of the Inspiration Exchange.

I’ve thought this before during the quiet bit at the start of an Exchange – I’m writing these notes waiting to be interrupted.

12.14

Reading a book would be more appropriate than looking at my phone, wouldn’t it?

A guy has come in looking for more information about the festival. I’m going to get him.

I swap AIR CRASH INVESTIGATION

For MIND MAPPING

F. tells me that he has severe dyslexia. He’s good at starting things, but completing them is difficult. He left school “with nothing” – as there was no support for, or even recognition of, his condition. They tried to make him order his thoughts in a way that just wasn’t natural to him.

A chance encounter with a psychologist in a pub lead to a conversation in which the psychologist explained the idea of Mind Mapping to him – a way of cataloguing your thoughts in a much less linear way than a list. (I realise I recognise this as spider-diagrams). Such a simple thing once you know it. But it transformed F.’s thinking. He went to college and came away with five A levels.

F. asks me to write the title card, and we carry on talking, about the writing he does now, and the ideas he’s developing with an old friend – a unique collaboration based on how long they’ve known each other. Friends since school.

Outside the rain has stopped. We thank each other and say goodbye, as a family arrive.

I swap “YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!”  “I KNOW!”

For TEN POUND POM

I think each time I present the Exchange, I learn something new. Fifty years ago, Australia needed more young men to work. If you were a young man in England, the Australian Government would pay for your travel if you would come over and work for at least two years. You just had to pay ten pounds (and the four weeks of your life that the boat journey took). But if you didn’t stay two years you had to pay your boat fare back to get home.

The grandfather who tells me this (who looks nowhere near his 76 years) is with his family; I guess wife, daughter and grandson. He was one of these Ten Pound Poms. He had moved around, living in a variety of shared houses. One evening he was cooking in the kitchen, when two Aussies came in and started having a go at a German guy for borrowing/stealing their food from the fridge. He’s not a fighter but a sense of fairness meant he felt that he had to step in and say, there’s two of you, one of him, so if this is a fight, you’re fighting me as well. The two Aussies backed off.

A few nights later and he’s in a bar, and steps in to stop another guy from shouting at a girl he knows from one of the houses he’s shared. He’s not a fighter, but the guy asks him to step outside (it’s fifty years ago, remember), so he does, thinking, basically, why do I keep doing this?

Sleeves are rolled up in the street, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder.

(German accent) “I’ll take this for you.”

The German guy from the kitchen is there, and steps in to have the fight for him, by way of thank you.

And it’s a proper fight. The police turn up, and arrest the two guys fighting and take them away to the station.

The next day the German is back at the house.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. They just put us in a cell for the night.”

“Thanks so much for stepping in. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. You did it for me. Ow.”

“Are you okay?”

“Well, he did break three of my ribs in the fight.”

Sitting in Hillsborough Library fifty years later, we all laugh. Amazing. That guy! And I’m waiting for “and we’re still friends today!”, but instead the grandad’s daughter says:

“And he never saw him again!”

We talk about stories. The grandson says he would like to write a book of his grandfather’s stories. Do it, I say. Do it. Start recording them as soon as you can.

I swap THE BROKEN TAXI METER

For CREAM TEA TEAM

A story about attention to detail and about a particular act of friendship.

In telling this story, we realise that B. has also told us another story, which we call GIVE AN OWL A DOVE which rewrites the old adage about giving a man fish or a fishing boat, to become something like:

Give an owl a rat and it can eat for a meal, give an owl a dove and it can kill it and use if for bait and eat rats for a week.

I swap LETTING GIRLS BE

For THE EMERGENCY EXIT SEAT

A story about coincidence and seizing the moment. R. tells us about travelling across India, flying from Delhi, and, through a safety briefing because they are all next to the Emergency Exit, getting to talk to the people sitting next to her. Once landed at Varanasi she needs to get to Allahabad – but doesn’t know how she will get there. She knows though that one of her neighbours was heading to Varanasi, too. So she summons her courage and asks a stranger for help – could she get a lift?

Of course she can, no problem. And once in the car they discover that not only can they (the guy and his driver) take her to the street of her accommodation, as it is so close to where he’s staying, he knows the friends-of-friends she’s planning on hooking up with later in the week – in fact he’s staying with them!

R. says these events re-inspired her faith in talking to other people.

I get a bonus title card OUR OPPORTUNITIES LIMIT US

I swap DO I DRAW THE ACTORS OR DO I DRAW WHAT I SAW?

For STORY CUBES

Which is a story about how the limitless possibilities presented by a game of story cubes can actually be very intimidating to a particular sort of thinker or researcher.

I swap 01369 870212

For HEADLESS SANTA

Which is a story about, well, a headless Santa, sprawled in the back yard of a pub, arms open wide as if to be embraced, or crucified. A. says she would see it regularly after getting off the tram on her way home from work. It was there for two weeks, moving around the back yard in a sort of daily time-lapse, and also niggling away at her thoughts. What was it doing there? Who had cut its/his head off?

Eventually a neighbouring business (a car valeting company?) stood him up next to the fence and gave him an advertising sign to hold. But not a head.

I swap TAKING AWAY THE SCAFFOLDING

For A TIN BOX OF CURLERS

A story about being fascinated with your (sterner) Grandmother’s tin box of hair curlers, and whilst being intimidated by her as a girl, also being fascinated by the meticulous way she would put those curlers into her hair. A story about growing up, and looking back, and realising that the curlers were part of this woman’s warpaint when she was younger; she had inherited a butcher’s shop that she had then effectively run on her own, from lugging the carcasses in, to dealing with customers. Looking right was part of the armour that allowed this young woman to work well in that world. And as she had grown older, that ritual had retained its importance. A story about looking back and realising, retrospectively, what an inspiration your (sterner) grandmother was.

I swap THE TURNINGS THE BUS DOESN’T TAKE

For THE WILD CEILIDH

A family of five squeezed into a car driving up to Scotland on holiday.

A long journey.

Two sisters and a brother squeezed onto the back seat.

Mum complaining about the distance.

And then the car crests a hill, and the road leads down to a loch.

It is beautiful.

It feels like an enchanted place.

They find where they are staying.

One night there is a ceilidh. It is wild.

The older daughter has never seen dancing like it.

There is a man there – unruly dark curly hair, piercing blue eyes. He clearly fancies the mum. He asks her to dance.

That night the daughter dreams about the stranger, dreams about him dancing with her mum. Exciting but frightening.

Somewhere in Scotland that loch is still there, mist lying on the water. And the hall where the ceilidh took place is still there, too.

I swap STOPPING PEOPLE DREAMING

For…

A story about realising that, sitting blindfolded in a room in a festival, you are not just listening to a story, you are active in it, participating. Who knew that human voices and a guitar could provide something so… limitless?

We say goodbye. And then I realise that he hasn’t named his story. So I call it ROOM.

Outside it sunny. The rain is evaporating from the paths. The library is closing. As the staff close the blinds and switch the self-scan machines off, I pack the Exchange away, and head outside. There’s a band playing.

POPCORN at The Holt!

As part of our 20th - 21st Anniversary celebrations this year, we're commissioning a series of Small Celebrations - intimate moments of performance by artists we have mentored, supported, collaborated or connected with over the years. Each will be documented and collected throughout the year and made available in the autumn. 

The first of these is our own small celebration, Popcorn. A fifteen minute performance reflecting on rules, time, making stuff, shared language, shared history and friendship. We'll be performing it at The Holt, a great new cafe and artspace in Sheffield, on Wednesday 18th May at 1.15pm, with an opportunity to chat afterwards. So if you're in Sheffield, why not come down for coffee, cake, a sandwich, and enjoy a lunchtime theatre celebration with us? We hope to see you there.

INSPIRATION EXCHANGE at WROUGHT: The Story of the Day

I spent last weekend at the wonderful WROUGHT Festival. It's been a pleasure to be able to support this festival with some mentoring, and it was a real joy to perform at it. (See previous post for what else we were doing/what else was happening).

For five and a bit hours on Sunday I was happily tucked away in a corner of The Hide in Sheffield, running the Inspiration Exchange. At the end of the day, at the start of the closing discussion of the Festival, I gave a little 'summing up' performance, trying to say just one thing about each story I was given. I said something like this:

I swapped DOGS WITH SQUASHY FACES
For THE SPEED DATE
Which is a story about how finding yourself in an unusual social situation, where the normal rules don't seem to apply, means that you find yourself behaving differently, more openly, than usual; and this raises the question as to whether this version of you is the real you?

I told A 6B PENCIL, but didn't swap it for anything straight away, as the woman who chose that card had to go in to another performance. I'll be back, she told me, with a good story. Though it occurred to me after she had gone that as we had also talked about seeing photos of the process of Picasso creating Guernica, and about her Dad's drawings as an aeronautical engineer, she had actually already shared some inspiration with me.

I swapped DENDROCHRONOLOGY
For FRAGMENTS OF GLASS ON THE BEACH
A story of a little girl walking on the beach, head down, like this, looking for beautiful jewels of glass, seaglass she calls it, in amongst the stones; it's the story of this girl now grown up, and preparing to move house and realising that she has pieces of glass, and pottery and beach stones, washed up on windowsills, shelves and under tables all over her home. She packs them up, and moves with them, confirming that they are, indeed, valuable to her. Now she just has to decide what to do with them, how to display them.

I swapped BARBERS CHANGE LIVES
For THE LOCKED DOOR
A mystery story. A story about getting a phone-call from your mother when she knows you are on a plane home from Osaka to Tokyo, and knowing, therefore, that this is a serious phone-call. A phone-call about a locked door - a door that has been locked from the inside, when the only people who could, or should, have been able to lock that door, are on the outside of it. And it is an unsolved mystery. When you eventually get through the door, into the house, there is no one inside.

I swapped FRAGMENTS OF GLASS ON THE BEACH
For ORIGINALITY IS NOT ALWAYS SO ORIGINAL
Which is the observation that in the arts there is often a desire, a pressure, to be original, to come up with something new, to not be derivative; whereas in academic and scientific research, it is assumed that you are completely familiar with the work of your peers, and that your own research builds on theirs.

I swapped INSIDE-OUT SHIRT
For MUSTN'T CHANGE MY INSIDE-OUT T-SHIRT UNTIL 12 NOON
A story about not being superstitious, but actually being a little bit superstitious, about how we carry things with us, things that might seem small at the time, from childhood to adulthood, whether we like it or not, and how these things can still affect our behaviour as grown ups.

I swapped TAKE  AWAY THE SCAFFOLDING
For FOR THE LOVE OF SCAFFOLDING
A story, or perhaps rather a declaration, or a sticking up for, scaffolding; a recognition that the structure of something, the bones, the construction, the scaffolding that enables something to be built, allows, therefore, something to be beautiful, can sometimes be as beautiful as the thing itself. 

I swapped DO I DRAW THE ACTORS OR DO I DO WHAT I SAW?
For A CAR RIDE WITH STUART
A story in which after a number of threatening conversations with a a grumpy Edinburgh landlord, due to a banking error, which involve him actually driving you to the bank, to a cash point, to get money for the rent that that bank hasn't processed, in a sequence of events that includes him threatening to throw you out onto the street, after all of these fractious, aggressive encounters, after finally getting the money out of you, he does at least drive you back into the city centre, during which he then attempts to make small talk, and resume everyday social niceties as if this hadn't all happened.

I told LETTING GIRLS BE, but again didn't swap it for anything straight away, as the woman who chose that card had to go in to another performance. I worried, momentarily, that this might become a motif of the afternoon...

I swapped BUILDINGS AS TIME-TRAVELLERS
For ACTING IN FEAR
A story about how, just because your 8 year old son was brave enough to visit an interactive, immersive, Dr Who experience, with full-size Stone Angels, that doesn't mean that he's old enough to be taken to a fully immersive performance set in a nightmarish dystopian future, within the huge concrete expanse of Park Hill flats, in which teenagers are being rounded up, apparently, and imprisoned, nor that teenagers, just because they're still children, aren't going to make a serious, dark and terrifying show.

I swapped THE IDEA OF A RETRONYM
For IS IT THE PERFECT DRESS
A story about realising that just because a particular social occasion demands that you should dress in a particular way, it's fine for you to choose a dress that you feel comfortable in, a dress that makes you look like you.

And the woman came back and I finally swapped A 6B PENCIL
For DONALD BUILT A SWIMMING POOL (AND PHYLLIS SAW HIM)
A long and complex story with a series of important plot points, of which this can only be a summary. 

But a young girl growing up in the in the 1930s has a very controlling father who thinks that he will - eventually - decide who she will marry. 

But her mother inherits some money and decides to put her foot down and pays for the daughter to train as a nursery nurse. 

She completes her training and becomes a live-in nurse for sick children.

When the Second World War breaks out she's already half way to being a fully trained nurse. 
So she enrols, completes her training, and finds herself as a military nurse stationed in Palestine.

There are a group of Canadian airmen being treated in the hospital, and once they are better, but not yet well enough to return to active duty, they decide to build a swimming pool, for everyone to use, but mainly to impress the nurses.

One day, once the pool is finished, Phyllis steps out of one of the hospital tents for a break, still wearing her full military nurse uniform.

She sees, in the pool, a single swimmer (there may be other people around, but we just see the two of them), a big Canadian airman, in the middle of the pool, who raises his head from the water and their eyes meet.

And they know.

He climbs out of the pool, and says, I just have to go and organise my men [there's a sports day on and he's in charge], but then I'm going to come back, and I would like to take you to dinner.

And they know.

And one day, years later, their grandaughter will tell me this story.

I swapped AN UNBOOKABLE PIECE OF KIT
For A TALE OF TWO GIANTS
A story that draws a parallel between two feuding technical offices in a university who will not speak to each other, and a children's story about two giants who have been throwing boulders at each other from their two islands for so long they have forgotten that they are brothers and it is only when they rush out into the sea to try to hit each other with clubs do they see that they are both wearing one sock from the same pair and then remember that they are brothers and that they shouldn't be fighting.

I swapped 01369 870212
For I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS IMPORTANT
Which is about discovering, much later in life, after you have grown up, that back when you were a child, when you were looked after by someone who lived with you, when you had an au pair, who much later, when she has grown up and grown older, and lost her husband and her son, decides to go back to revisit the people in her life who were important to her, how when that happens you discover that even though you were only a child, you were important to someone, without you even knowing.

[I realise now that I forgot to mention that I swapped 
ORIGINALITY IS NOT ALWAYS SO ORIGINAL
For THE VALUE OF A LITTLE BIT OF FREEDOM]

I swapped IS IT THE PERFECT DRESS?
For A BIG PILE OF [TALKING] SHIT
Which, however improbable this might sound, is about good always triumphing and evil always being defeated.

I swapped FOR THE LOVE OF SCAFFOLDING
For VEG TALK
The story of how Greg Wallace started on the radio presenting a Radio 4 programme, Veg Talk, back in the day when to complain about BBC programmes you used to have to phone up to complain, and people would complain about Greg Wallace having a regional accent, and how at the time there was at least one person in the complaints office who thought this was not a valid complaint so whenever anyone did phone up to complain about this they logged the call as praise, as someone phoning up to say, this is great, lets have more of it, and so, possibly as a consequence, Greg Wallace got a second series. 

This story also features the fact that back at this time, regular complainers would give themselves pseudonyms to hide behind: "Hello, this is The Red Shadow! I'm phoning to complain..."

And the second woman came back and I finally swapped LETTING GIRLS BE
For THE INSECT HITCH-HIKER
The story of how a small, simple act of kindness, such as flicking an insect from a stranger's shoulder, so they are no longer standing paralysed with fear and can continue across the road, can make the day of both the flicker and the flickee.

I swapped AN 86 YEAR OLD AUNT WHO SMOKES 40 A DAY
For HUMANITY LOOKING ON
A story about scale, about how life size figures looking out of a painting can make eye contact and implicate you, the viewer, in the scene of an execution that you could not even have been present at because it happened before you were even born.

I swapped ACTING IN FEAR
For BEING EAVESDROPPABLE
A story about how someone sitting close to you, in a pub, can assume that this conversation you keep having with different people is a job interview, an interview for a job behind the bar, but then realise after it is explained to them that it's an interview for a job in a performance, oh, no, actually it is a performance, and how they have learned quite a lot about British law by eavesdropping on this, what is it, a performance, and how that seems entirely appropriate.

I swapped MONKEY VISIT
For SWAN PROTECTION
Which is a story about grief. About how pikes are dangerous fish. About how swans are monogamous. But I suppose really this is a story about a mother protecting her children.

And then we were out of time. Thanks to everyone who swapped a story with me, and thanks for listening.

INSPIRATION EXCHANGE Sheffield

This weekend it's the WROUGHT Festival in Sheffield - only the second incarnation of this great festival, and we're really looking forward to being part of it.

We're showing Cape Wrath at 12 and 6pm on Saturday, and Rachael is performing in Michael Pinchbeck's The man who flew into space from his apartment at 4pm on Sunday. The rest of the programme looks fantastic, the other artists are brilliant and from experience I can recommend The Reservation. If I wasn't performing, I'd be seeing all of it.

Book tickets for all of it here.

Or, just turn up - there might be a few tickets left on the day, but there are also some free drop-in* events, too, such as our INSPIRATION EXCHANGE on Sunday, 11am - 4pm, with a 'Story of the day' performance at 5pm. The festival is based at The HIDE on Scotland Street.

[*Update: you need a ticket for another WROUGHT event to be able to come to the unticketed ones, though a little bird tells us if you drop by on the off-chance, you may find yourself able to join us if you'll consider buying a one-off ticket for another Sunday show]

It's great to bring the Inspiration Exchange back to Sheffield. Back in 2010 I was invited to talk for the second time at Sheffield Art-Science Encounters' event, Sing To Me Muse, about where ideas come from.

It was a really interesting brief - we were each asked to talk for 10 minutes about something that inspired us, then to devise a workshop exercise that was suitable for people to drop-in and out of. I was planning something else (I forget what) but relatively late in the day threw the idea out and came up with the mechanism that would become Inspiration Exchange, swapping stories about things that had inspired me over the years, with things that had meant something to audience members... I got some lovely stories: 

Colour Combinations
NOISE
A recording by John Williams
A PALE BLUE DOT
Interaction
her hands in my hair

And since then, as you'll know if you follow this blog, the Inspiration Exchange has gone on to be one of my favourite projects, a durational story swapping performance that is regularly archived here. Each presentation of the exchange contains stories given at all of the previous exchanges, so gradually the starting lineup is evolving. I've met some amazing people, and been told some incredible, funny and moving stories.

This is how it works. I hope you can join join us.

Third Angel presents an

INSPIRATION

EXCHANGE

WROUGHT Festival

The HIDE, Scotland Street, Sheffield

Sunday 17^th April, 11am – 4pm

"Story of the day" presentation at 5pm

Hello – welcome.

This is an Inspiration Exchange. Please feel free to stay and listen to the conversation for as long as you wish.

After each story-exchange, Alex will ask if anyone has a story they would like to hear, from the title-cards on the table. All of the stories are about things that have inspired someone.

If you would like to choose a story, the deal is that you will be asked to swap it for a story about something that has inspired you. Your card, with your story title, will then go into the pack, for someone else to choose later.

Psalter Lane, six years on

It feels like this is the last in the series.*

Six years ago I was asked to write a piece for the Sheffield Telegraph about the closure of "Psalter Lane" - which many people in Sheffield understand to mean Sheffield Hallam University's Psalter Lane Campus - an art school. Sheffield Hallam were moving their art teaching to be part of their city centre campus.

I was sad to see it close. I had attended Psalter Lane as an MA film student, and then did a few visiting lectures there once Third Angel was set up. But I knew it mainly from going to degree shows there - an annual cultural highlight in Sheffield. I was brought up around Walsall College of Art as both my parents taught there, and so I have an ingrained affection for self contained art colleges/campuses. And I live in this area of Sheffield. I felt I was qualified to write something. I said I was sad to see it close.

For several years after that, my walk to work would take me past Psalter Lane campus. Around the time the campus closed, Sheffield artist Kid Acne had painted YOU'LL MISS ME WHEN I'M GONE over the main entrance. Beautifully judged.

Being the obsessive documenter that I am, I began an annual series of updates, as the campus started to become derelict, got demolished, and has now been rebuilt. Or erased. 

I guess there is an implicit criticism or complaint in this series of posts. We should be building art schools, not getting rid of them. Hallam still has a fine art department. But there's something about the contained art college campus that gives it a different energy and atmosphere. (The same is true of performance courses, and though I have less connection with them, I instinctively miss Bretton Hall and Dartington. University of Hull @ Scarborough is next.)

You can see all of those previous visits here.

And here is a last visit. The first one where there have been other people around. I tried to have a look inside the Show Home, but it wasn't open.

    

*But knowing me there'll be a Psalter Lane 10 or 11 years on...

Psalter Lane, five years on

[If you haven't seen this accidental series before, you might want to click here, for previous instalments, as that will help explain what's going on.]


And now it really feels like it's gone. Even once it had been demolished and cleared, I had a sense that the remains of Psalter Lane Campus were still there. I could imagine the vanished buildings on the empty site. Remember the canteen, the car park, the studio blocks, like ghosts standing around the Old Library.

But now the site is being over written.

Psalter Lane, four years on

So, this is the fifth in an ongoing series. Four years ago I was asked to write a piece for the Sheffield Telegraph about the closure of "Psalter Lane" - which many people in Sheffield understand to mean Sheffield Hallam University's Psalter Lane Campus - an art school. Sheffield Hallam were moving their art teaching to be part of their city centre campus.

I was sad to see it close. I had attended Psalter Lane as an MA film student, and then did a few visiting lectures there once Third Angel was set up. But I knew it mainly from going to degree shows there - an annual cultural highlight in Sheffield. I was brought up around Walsall College of Art as both my parents taught there, and so I have an ingrained affection for self contained art colleges/campuses. And I live in this area of Sheffield. I felt I was qualified to write something. So I did. I said I was sad to see it close.

And every summer since I've done this. You can see previous entries, including the Sheffield Telegraph article, by clicking here.

This year I chose the one overcast morning of an otherwise sunny week to take my camera with me on my walk to work. As you'll see, there's a planning application in. Perhaps next year, it will look different. But whatever they build, I'll miss the art school that was here, now that it's gone.