“Carry me along oh road”

The journeys of a headless camel

in collaboration with Paddy Hamilton

A project inspired by our shared circumstances; we are both artists from a mixed cultural and post colonial background, French from Morroco, Irish from Zambia, now living and working in London.

A solitary found object has become (over time) a pivot and connector through which disparate individuals can share and communicate experience of displaced cultural identity within an urban environment.

A headless camel

A piece of urban detritus I found on Bell St market in London, snatched from its own journey from somewhere to somewhere, quickly acquired a symbolic meaning independent of what it is and where it was found.

It became a perfect metaphor for past and current feelings of cultural displacement which had not been articulated prior to this encounter between two people and a headless camel.

Rather than using the obvious exotic associations of the camel as a romantic symbol, we decided to rediscover London using the camel both as a vehicle and a mean to liberate us from cultural, gender and social constraints.

The map and the journey

The outline of the camel’s form was plotted, like a dot to dot drawing onto a map of London, 62 points of reference which became destinations or points of rests on our journey through the streets of London; two people and one headless camel.

– At each point of rest a numbered ( 1 – 62 ) plaster cast of the camel is deposited along with a correspondingly numbered woodcut print of the camel form.
– Each position is recorded photographically through a 175 degree panoramic black and white image showing the street in which both camel traces now exist.
– Finally a ‘ souvenir ‘ object is collected in exchange for the plaster cast left behind, ensuring the continuing journey of the headless camel outside the control of the project.
– Each point of rest is recorded in writing in a travel diary containing; technical photographic data, details of the location, personal impressions, incidents, objects collected, contacts of individuals encountered.

Our Journey commenced on the 20th of July 1992 and was completed on the 9th of March 1994.

The exhibition

– BIRTH CERTIFICATES framed
– ORIGINAL CAMEL OBJECT under a glass specimen jar
– ORIGINAL MAP OF JOURNEY mounted on canvas
– A SMALL PHOTOGRAPH OF P.H & E,W in transit between 2 destinations
– 1 SMALL SET UP SHOWING TOOLS USED AT EACH DESTINATION
– WOODCUT PRINT OF CAMEL POSTER used to mark each destination
– PLASTER CAST OF CAMEL
– THE CUT OUT WOODEN HAND used on location
– THE  WOODEN CLAPPER BOARD / TRIANGLE
– 1 MOSAIC PRINT OF CLAPPER BOARD PHOTOGRAPHS dim. 200x107cm
– 1 SOFT CAMEL SCULPTURE displaying objects collected at each destination (200×250 cm)
– 1-62 LABELS OF OBJECTS COLLECTED AT EACH DESTINATION
pasted along the base of the wall on which the soft camel is stretched
–  2 VIDEOS TO BE SHOWN IN ROTATION of the action taking place at each destination, and of the last destination where the camel was thrown into the Thames from Chelsea Harbour.
– 1 AUDIO TAPE OF THE TRAVEL DIARY to listen to while watching the videos
– 2 URBANISTO BOXES
– A TAPE SLIDE INSTALLATION OF THE LONDON JOURNEY
62 photographs of the destinations, audio tape of the diary and details of each destination.

URBANISTO

A kit with which to conduct a comparative exploration of any urban environment. The kit fits into a wooden suitcase.

The suitcase itself is used on one side as a location board, on the other as a triangular backdrop for the camel objects photographed at each location.

URBANISTO explorations have taking place in New York, and Quebec city.

I consider this project to be at the roots of and foundational of my practice as a whole. In the way it provided answers to a personal enquiry into my mixed cultural identity. And an occasion for first tentative experiments with processed based, multidisciplinary, collaborative, performative strategies to activate a deeper engagement with our inner and outer landscape and each other.