Diary Room
‘Love Carlisle’ is a collaborative project run by artists Derek Eland and Richard Wainman and based in Carlisle. The project combines art and culture change to identify new perspectives and challenge existing situations. It is interested in exciting ways of engaging with audiences which have a broader cultural and political resonance.
The resulting work is partly aspirational and sometimes inspiring but also grounded in the reality of what it is like to live in a British town, often gritty, shocking, basic and uninspiring. It is a reality check on what people in the city really think and want.
Once the engagement part of the project was completed the work was carefully dismantled, recorded and archived in order to preserve the integrity of the piece. As a result of this process the installation can be reassembled exactly as it was in the empty shop. In this video the notes are placed exactly as they were originally stuck by members of the public in the empty shop in 2009 for an exhibition in the Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle, 18 September – 28 November 2010.
The viewers’ experience is that from a distance the work looks like a sea of different colours over a large area. Closer in, the ‘sea’ becomes a number of unique cards, and closer still comments are discernable. It is engaging from both 30 feet and three inches away.
Dimensions of “This could be Carlisle or anywhere”: length 54ft, height 9ft 6”
Medium: 4000 ‘post-it’ notes with handwritten comments, to be secured on the wall with additional sticky tabs; vinyl lettering.