ROADWORKS II

Pitshanger Manor Gallery, London
04/10/2001 - 11/11/2001
Part of ‘Look out’ touring exhibition curated by Peter Kennard

 

Performed and shot during and part of International Festival of Visual Art 1998 , Central Exhibition Hall, St Petersburg

Carry me along oh road – One on the road forever carrying one’s load.
A road for one traveller – an imaginary path on which is repeatedly inscribed the phrase carry me along oh road.

In Roadwork II I undertake a subjective journey through the streets of St. Petersburg carrying a road-object on my back, guided and documented by a local artist and video maker Roman Yadykine. As a road carrier accompanied by a local I was allowed to venture (safely) in areas not normally available to a foreign visitor.

The road-object is an artwork whose fragility and mobility denies the logic of roads as such; the phrase carry me along oh road is continuously printed sentence over sentence onto a canvas model of a road seen in diminishing perspective.

The installation consists of

A ROAD FOR ONE TRAVELLER
Rolled up in its canvas bag, B&W
 photocopy on canvas with bamboo spine at the back (size; 3.5 x1.64 m)

A virtual road, fragile. A road-object whose fragility and mobility denies the logic of roads as such; the phrase carry me along oh road is continuously printed sentence over sentence onto a canvas model of a road seen in diminishing perspective. Carry me along oh road, an evocation with a chant like quality which nomads or travellers may recite for encouragement or to ward off fatigue.

Carry me along oh road (sheroad 1)
black and white photographic print (130 cms x 105 cms)
One of a few images taken during a public performance in the streets around Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg with Anthony Howell acting as a town crier shouting ‘carry me along oh road’.

‘ unyesi menya proch’ o doroga ‘
black and white photocopy
Performance poster and flyer used in St Petersburg.

CARRY ME ALONG OH ROAD in St Petersburg
Video diptych (8.30 mins)
I undertake a subjective journey through the streets of St. Petersburg carrying a road-object on my back, guided and documented by a local artist and video maker Roman Yadykine.

 

ROADWORKS in St Petersburg (1998)
double screen projection – 8.30 mins

Part of ‘Look out’ touring exhibition and catalogue in 2000/2001; Wolverhampton, Liverpool, London, Ipswich.