CONNIE HOPE

Fieldwork led by Dr. Pil Kollectiv

Part 1 //

Moving through suburbia was not mundane; It’s something I used to do a lot, but not so much any more. I think back on the way I used to romanticise a solo stroll through the man made renders of wildlife. Concrete paths injected with shrubs you shouldn’t touch and people that you pass but shouldn’t talk to. A guided meditation, where you are lead by your own thoughts, not the space you are moving through.

Gradually, my surroundings changed. Like scenes being swapped in a low-fi movie, or better still a puppet show; The cumbersome and methodical movement of the set rearranging before your eyes is always charming. An audience can either pretend that they don’t see this happening, or admire the grace of this performative gesture.

The vast and vapid open spaces that broke up the landscape allowed for this visual reset. This rhythm is essential for carrying you through into the next. Next what? Next thought or feeling? Next scene to play out in an imaginary scenario or actually in the space around you? Where I’ll be in a few moments will be miles away from where I am in my own head.

The architecture here is not monumental. But there is an air of seclusion and secrecy when following the patchwork tarmacs of these roads. Its a place that seemingly has no past or future. Only present. but not the sort of present you want to see flourish, only to maintain. To maintain the functionality of existing as you are now.

Housing developments like this one were a relatively new concept in the late 80’s – 90’s, where under the Thatcher government a dramatic change in the way England created houses and living space promoted what we view today as a private ideal of existing and living. Something I seem to be programmed to want and to strive for. My own plot of land. My own driveway. My own front door. My own four walls. I will make my mark on it, I’ll number it. I’ll protect it with my life and take pride in the way it looks. I. might even install cameras. I want it to be the best kept on the street, even though I’m in keeping with how the others look.

Lines seem to unwind and crawl away from the direction they’ve been set. Just like how a scorpio would do the opposite of what you ask them. Its just the way they are programmed. Clambering away from where they are destined. Where we walk is not written in the lines we are physically lead by. Because pathways don’t lead anywhere if you don’t follow them.

Competing with the staged nature composition, is something that has broken free.The pylons stand tall and proud. They are monumental yet they say nothing. They stay stagnated, posed and expressionless. Silent signifiers that tell me this isn’t right.

Part 2 //

I took Shareece to suburbia. I wanted to retrace my steps. I wanted to do it all again. And I wanted to do it just the same. I wanted everything to be the same. Nothing can be a fair test in this way, because when moments pass everything changes. Suburbia was largely the same. Nothing changed. Nothing will. These places exists to survive not to progress. To deliver what it did the day before, and the same the day after. But everything was different for me.

I’ll leave these here. It will be like I never left. Because these remain. I pass all the monuments I did a few days ago. And I made them look different, if only for a few moments.

The organic sling shot shape of the bones that make up this huge pylon mirror the smaller entities Sharecce carried my sticks towards it like it was her calling.

We returned something that belonged here.

Now we can leave and never come back.