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For
a city whose economy has literally moved from hardware to software
(ship building to the service industry) an ever-changing online snapshot
is
a fitting monument. Over a twelve month period (2001/2002) Margaret
Crane|Jon Winet researched the inner town and greater surrounds of
Newcastle/Gateshead,
working with residents, the university community and Locus+, one
of the city’s public art commissioning agencies to launch their
internet-based Monument. The resulting photography, interviews, video,
creative non-fiction
and dynamic web-content together form a robust testimony to the regeneration
of the formerly industrial cityscape and to the effects of the regeneration,
both positive and negative- on the culture of the place. Given that
many economic recovery projects on Tyneside have taken the form of
cultural
initiatives—such as BALTIC, a contemporary art centre with bookstore,
café and |
restaurants
in a renovated flour mill on the south side of the river Tyne—Margaret
Crane|Jon Winet’s Monument is both a provocative
and proactive reframing of a city and its historic and contemporary
role within the larger social and political fabric of England. Whether
it
is through listening to Norman Baker, while his cigarette smoke curls
up over his pint of Guinness, talk about ‘modernisation’ and
the policies of council housing in the 1960s that produced an inner
city diaspora, or though hearing Gaby Kitoko describe the difficulties
of
adjusting to a cold climate in his asylum from the Democratic Republic
of Congo – another kind of diaspora he works to support – the
viewer is made aware that monuments are only as meaningful as the
lives of the people they represent. Sarah
Cook, Postdoctoral Researcher |
Monument commissioned by Locus+, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England funded by the Arts Council of England and Northern Arts hosted by Sunderland University, Sunderland, England Westgate Entry opened October 26, 2004 inaugural launch: July 12, 2002 |
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