Hidden Spaces – Intro

genny — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:43:33 +0000

At Central Station this month [April 2010] we’re focusing our sights on Hidden Spaces, and inviting people to write a blog and upload a video or images of their personal ‘hidden spaces’ – real, imagined, impermanent, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant, filmic, politically sublimated and fraught with tension.

Hidden Spaces – what do they mean and how do they affect us? Each person carries with them their own sense of home, tied to their sense of belonging, their past and their wished-of future. From this conception of home we construct the world around us – places we feel safe in, drawn to, wary of, excluded from and intrigued by. Our idea of these places might change as we grow familiar with them, as personal and emotional associations fluctuate, as our bodies move through space and as others enter or leave that space – constructing spaces of migration, dislocation, settlement and even bereavement, each with conceptually structured layers of surface, accessibility and invisibility overlaying the physical construct of our environment.

With such a subjectively-framed starting point, not only will personal interpretations of hidden spaces vary, but these will be carried into the cultural and professional production of spaces, so an architect’s perception of Hidden Space might be very different from a public artist’s, an anarchist’s or a film location scout’s, and each of these professionals will in turn come to influence how we navigate the space around us.

From this broad and permeable conception of space we’ve drawn a few more concrete examples, and we’ll be featuring differing approaches to the theme of Hidden Spaces. From Curator to Artist to Poet, we’ve invited some guest bloggers to write about their relationships with spaces, here are some of the contributors we’ve got lined up to kick things off:

Matt Baker, in the past Lead Artist for both Inverness and the Gorbals, writing on hidden space from the perspective of someone who makes public art. Read his blogs: hiding, finding and the search, space hidden in things, looking for unconformity… & seasoning time.

Sarah Butler, author and head of the UrbanWords consultancy, developing projects which explore regeneration and place through creative writing. Read her blog here.

Richard Taylor, freelance artist & writer, talks about his collaboration on a project focused on abandoned spaces. Read his blogs: ArtEvict – hidden space and revealing performance, SPLICING HORRISONS, Hidden space – tent as a transitory studio, THE CUMBRIA ENERGY CENTRE & getting lost remaining hidden

Collaborative collective, Sans Facon, gave us a continued visual dairy of hidden spaces being enjoyed in everyday life. See their observations here.

We also had contributions from:
Arika – Shadowed Spaces
Johanna Basford – hidden (work) spaces
Neil McGuire – Hidden Spaces: Supreme Social Networks
Erin McElhinney – What’s in a name?
Susan Castillo – Hidden Space
Fraser Denholm – Tracing Places

Tell us about your hidden spaces - add a link to a blog, a video or photographs from the overlooked or concealed spaces of your city in the comments below.

What’s in a name?

genny — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:48:14 +0000

This month’s theme makes me really happy. This is because finding hidden spaces makes me happy. That feeling that’s summed up by the phrase ‘hugged it to oneself’ is exactly the one I get when I stumble upon somewhere hidden, secretive and all miiiiiiiine. Maybe it springs from the all too human instinct for ownership; you can convince yourself that you’re the first person to find the dappled green clearing in the middle of a city park, and you’re damned if you’re going to tell anyone about it, in case they start going there too. And leaving their crisp packets. Maybe it’s simply being an urbanite; when we’re crammed into apartment blocks, with our delineated 1 bed, 1 bath, living room with a cooker and (if you’re lucky) a sectioned piece of grass that ‘belongs’ to your numbered door, finding that Other Place, apart and separate and extra, can be invigorating.

This is also, perhaps, why Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities. It’s a place of little steps up and down, doorways that go nowhere, alleys that twist and turn, courtyards that suddenly appear around corners, windows that peek out from unlikely places. It’s easy to simply wander there and end up somewhere entirely unexpected and suddenly, blissfully isolated. I remember when I discovered a small mews at the bottom of The Royal Mile, where a whitewashed archway steps through to a cobbled square surrounded by cottages, complete with climbing roses and honeysuckle. Less than 20 feet away in one direction is The Scottish Parliament, and in the other a particularly rowdy metal club. And that made it all the more perfect.

Recently I had reason to be driving to Auchtermuchty (I didn’t make that up. Really) and passed through Falkland. Sitting in a van full of drummers (long story) we found ourselves stuck in a one way street at the end of which a sign told us we’d reached ‘The Hidden Place’. At the time we quickly roared into the building’s car park, 3.2 turned it and zoomed out again, but I was niggled enough by the contradictory idea of boldly declaring one’s own hidden-ness that I just poked Google and lo and behold, said sign is actually part of a rather cool project from a couple of years ago. A project that in itself was about revealing hidden meanings. All of which leaves me with a rather satisfying feeling. Which I’ll hug to myself for a while.

Find out more about Erin McElhinney here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.

Central Station » Erin McElhinney

Hidden Spaces – Intro

What’s in a name?