A friend takes a holiday

Once upon a time I was whiling the hours away making this an that when along comes a friend a knockin an a enquiring as to how I'm doing. " just fine I says" a little distracted, as I notice he has a large bin bag stuffed with somthin intriguing.

"Watcha got there?" "These" he pulls out a well stuffed and rolled sickly-bright, yellow plastic thing. It turns out to be one of two huge suits that look like the sort of things you would wear in a chemically dangerous area.

So anyway I gain these two new, unusual friends and set them to work in my artistic endeavours (wacky instillations an the sort).



Along comes the Nelson street graffiti festival an here at the Island (the home of my studio, not an actual island unfortunately, as that'd be cool) we decide to host an open studio event to coincide with it. I gets to thinkin why not get me old mate the yellow man to stand around outside an drum up some custom. What with him being 9 foot tall and bright yellow.



Well I'm a little scared for im but figure he's a big boy now an tie him up with cable ties next to a sign that points the way to our studios. All goes well for a while but after a second day out there alone he disappears...



I worried and fretted but figured he was probably sick of being holed up in my studio and had decided to go it alone. Until one day I saw him down the road slumped in a corner inside the building that was host to the Nelson street festival shin dig type thing. Oh I think, so that's what he was up to partyin away while I slave at all the arty stuff.



So I left him to it, as I was busy an all an had the other suit.



But then a week or two later I had a great big shock. You wouldn't have credited it but there he was, lookin a little sheepish, slumped up on the step of the main entrance to me studio.



He had a note attached sayin "I've been on a little holiday. I had fun, but I'm back now"

Here he is getting drunk.for more info visit arrrtmybrainhurts.blogspot.com

I dont know who brought him back but someone must have known he was mine an seen to it he was returned. I like that there was know explenation other than that hed been on holiday. We all need a bit of mistery in our lives. Even if you are a bright , 9 foot tall, yellow suit.

An interview with Naomi, on her film and working with The Invisable Circus

How did you first get involved with this project?

I started filming in 2006. They (the invisible circus) were in a squat around the corner from my house in the old Audi garage on Cheltenham Rd. I saw a lot of performance there that got my attention. These were people that weren’t paralysed by tradition or worried about getting funded, they were just a group of people getting on with it and I liked that.

Were you already interested in the circus or was it the invisible circus that first caught your attention?

 I was interested in performance from the age of 10 and studied theatre at uni. I had ideas but felt a helplessness as I didn’t know how to make them happen. I felt demoralised by the end of it. I felt that there was a tradition there that I didn’t fit in with. I love performing but felt that it was not saleable work, so I learned technical film making. Now through making this film I’ve got back into performance.

The eviction hearing for the Audi garage was on the same day as the big show; Road to nowhere. That was 29 September 2006, the day I started filming.

It was a high profile project, there were lots of people in and out making work and coming to see it. People liked them being there and felt it was better to have the shows and use the space than just leave another abandoned building. It was at this time when people from the arts council became interested. It was a grim autumn and winter of evictions and moving from place to place before they got a secure place.

How was it working with the people from the Invisible circus? How did they take to being filmed?

 

Some people were a little uncomfortable being filmed, but mostly people were very happy. They felt it showed support and faith in the ongoing project, especially during the times when it was just a few people huddled in a terraced house over winter.

Were there any difficulties you encountered while filming?

The major hurdles were the time and effort it took to put it together. I had 300 hours of tape and it was self funded. Having a studio here helped enormously, but the edit took about a year and a half in total.

I took a month and a half out of free lance work for the biggest chunk of the edit. I got friends and family to raise 1000 pounds from amongst 80 people to help get me through that time. Two of my friends worked for free on the sound and colour grade for what they thought would be a few weeks but turned into 6 months! My husband also did masses of work. It was difficult to hand the work over to people and stressful getting it all done.

So what would you say the film is about?

It’s a story of people working outside the normal way of working, a DIY scene that was coming into the market, from a squat into a rented space. There were benefits and draw backs, it was inspiring and I was interested by the transition. The project was fuelled on inspiration and love which is why I got involved.

What are you doing with it now? ( this was some time ago now )

Well this weekend I'm holding an invite-only free screening and knees-up to say thanks to those who helped me and to the circus. I've just found out the cinema it was going to be at doesn't exist any more, which was quite a shock! But true to form the circus has rallied round and we're building our own cinema. After that I'll start holding screenings wherever I can- hopefully in lots of once-derelict arts spaces all over the world.

www.invisiblecircusfilm.com for online viewing, bookings, reviews and DVD's

A story from the cells; anonymous

‘I’d been arrested  as I was walking around a Broadmead Clothing Shop with several pairs of Jeans over my shoulder, as I hunted for the ‘perfect pair’. I was 17 at the time, the shop assistant must have been suspicious as was often the case when black youth were in shops (in the 1980’sat least!). When the attending P.C’s asked what was on my shoulder, I replied,’it’s a parrot’. That was the signal to get me out of the shop and into Bridewell Cop Shop as soon as possible. At the interview  I protested my innocence and was detained down in the cells. When breakfast was given to me in the morning, I used it to make an Art installation on the cell walls.,My sanity was in question ,and as I was uncooperative.  i.e wouldn’t write a statement, In the cell I kept up a loud shouting calling the name of the P.C ,but he wouldn’t come, but several P.C’s did come into me and I resisted them.My Solicitor wanted the Psych Dr (Police) to examine me and release me. And so I was bailed, and eventually the case was …dropped

identification parade; Tom

I went to the old Bridewell station for a identification parade.

 I had been mugged week or so before and was being called in to 

identify a man who I had described (apparently) as having a ginger

 beard and wearing a woolly hat.

It was only a few years ago, but still before the introduction of

 the video ids they use now. So I was picked up from home by a 

detective in an unmarked car. And as I was driven through the 

Bridewell gates I was told that I would have to wait in the 

Witness Protection Suite while officers scoured Broadmead for

 suitable candidates for the parade. I was not too pleased to

 discover that the Suite was in fact a Portakabin in the car park.

My description of the offender was obviously a tough remit to

 fulfil.
For three or four hours, I sat in the "suite" alongside a retired 

seaman from Stockwood whom, it was believed, had been the victim 

of the same gang. He smelt a bit of wee. All we had to entertain 

ourselves was the Queen Mother's funeral being shown on the 

portable TV.

Eventually the time came. I was ushered through a cordon of cops

 into a dark room — like the ones you get at the zoo when you need

 to look at nocturnal animals. Through the glass sat a string of

 young men all wearing woolly hats. I was told to take my time. 

Number 6 had the build and visage of a criminal under suspicion of

 street robbery. And he had a beard of brown stubble. Everyone else

 looked like the cast of Snow White with false ginger bead glued to

 their rosy faces. All except one

other—he looked like the bloke who used to work in Circle K on the 

Gloucester Road (now long gone), but was it him or was he the crim?

 Reasonable doubt clouded my view. I didn't have a clue and when I 

said so the detectives groaned audibly. Only the inspector was 

considerate:

"Obviously the man who robbed you is not here," he said. But I've

 always wondered if he was...

Tom 

The strange hidden lives of Bridewell

 Hello. Ive set up this blog for Bridewell stories the Islands contribution to the Bristol Biannual. http://bristolbiennial.com/events.html

This is a brief story of how my views on the building that is the Old Bridewell Police Station have changed form indifference to curiosity, surprise and finally affection.

The strange hidden lives of Bridewell

It was a few months after moving to Bristol before I moved into the Island, with my studio in the Old police station. I had often walked past the building; the stern authoritarian exterior compelling me to keep my head down and move on. It seemed there was “nothing to see here”, and so I assumed it was still a police station and paid little heed to what went on inside. Little did I know, it was to play a big part in my life and shape my actions for the next 3 years and counting...

After a few years of  traveling an the like I alighted in lovely Bristol with the intention of settling for a while and finally doing something constructive with my passion: art/painting/ and such things. So with this in mind I set about looking for a studio and visited the Island home of the invisible circus and a bewildering array of colorful residents spread out over an improbable jumble of buildings made up of the Old police Station, the old fire station and an even older court house.

There were studios in the police station side an the rent was cheap so I jumped at the chance and found myself being a "real artist" with a studio! Don't you know.

How could I have guessed that this solid stone symbol of law and order would be a place to meet fellow creative people, to be inspired and create? How could I have guessed that there would be burlesque dancers on stilts stalking the corridors, or that I would be spending several manic weeks constructing a landscape out of books? Or even painting glow in the dark aliens deep beneath the fire station?

How can you know how many stories are hiding out there as you walk past busy with your own? Or what part a hither to nondescript building will play in your life?

Well I used to care not one jot about the gruff looking building on Nelson street, at most I was mildly scared by it. Then the most unexpected things stated happening in my life in and around the building. And now its a well loved home from home to me. Its a place where I work and where I have made friends. Its for me no longer a symbol of law and order but a symbol of all the wonderful people I have met and ironically a symbol of the freedom to create and express myself.

Hope that's wetted your appetite for all things bridewellian.

Over the next few weeks I hope that we will discover some of the unexpected, happy, sad and down right strange stories that have attached themselves to this odd little corner of town and maybe learn a little about the people who made them.

Dan Le mesurier

For more on Le mesurier visit: arrrtmybrainhurts.blogspot.com

A landscape made from books.