Horizontal Assembly
September 2014
Gatherings; Social or leisure events as a way to suspend notions of class and formality in favour of non-hierarchical forms of interaction.
Through a collaborative residency at AirSpace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent we explored gatherings; those based on site or identity; impromptu, organised or institutionalised. What are the social, political, and cultural functions of these?
Temporary Abode, Keele Services, and the Great Bed of Ware, are sleeping sites informal boundaries of private and political social space. The photograph depicts a dwelling discovered in the woods near Keele services on the M6, where we travelled to perform an ‘excavation’ of a historic rave site.
The two beds share a certain folklore; we found signs of previous visitors, discarded cans, lighters and food receptacles; which, in a similar way to the graffiti and seals on The Bed of Ware, inform of the sites social history. The form of the dwelling (made as it is of branches and leaves) impresses upon us thoughts of human nesting; we imagine the den used over time and by a weary revelers and travellers. Strangers resting together, trusting each other, in a temporary transitory manner, as the boundaries of privacy are relaxed in favour of a good nights sleep.
