Meeting 10 May.
• The perception of the town needs to be changed to encourage more people to come.
• In 2012 the aim is to get lots of new visitors staying in Gravesend and travelling up to the Olympics on the train. Additional accommodation will be provided in liner ships moored on the Thames, as well as two temporary campsites.
• A new pontoon at the end of the Old Town pier will enable pleasure cruisers to once again deliver tourists direct to the High Street.
• 2012 is also the Dickens Bicentenary.
• Gravesend has many individual historic gems, which need to be more accessible so that visitors feel there is always something new to discover.
• The town is no longer about heavy industry and is surrounded by beautiful countryside and riverside walks.
• New audio walks will be launched in July, to take visitors on a tour of the historic highlights of the town.
Two women overheard in Gravesend Library.
5 May
• What’s the point of the new pontoon? What will people do when they disembark? Go to the pound shop?
Gravesend Historic Society.
12 May Discover Gravesham walk with Tom Bains.
13 May meeting in market cafe and visit to St Andrew's Art Centre.
Lynda Smith (author of 'The Place to spend a happy day. A History of Rosherville Gardens.')
• Victorian pleasure seekers required elaborate entertainments and there was always a tension between the high-brow aspirations of some and low-down behaviour of others.
• So many intricately researched stories about the characters who populated the town for 70 years from the 1830s.
• All that remains of Rosherville now is a model in Towncentric.
Tom Bains (author of 10 books on the pubs and taverns of Gravesend).
• Hundreds of pubs, where they stood, what they were called, what became of them. Which were his favorites? which did his Dad visit?
• Walking, pointing out empty places where pubs once stood.
• Sense of loss.
Sandra Soder.
• Saving the town heritage, sometime from skips. Fighting to keep the museum going. Safe guarding the archive. Artifacts wrapped in red tape, hidden in dehumidified storage. Might consider lending some objects to the project.
Tony Larkin.
• Encyclopedic knowledge of the town. Interpreted at every step. Accompanied by a commentary on decades of struggling with authorities to have local history told and to have his voice heard.
• Feels that what people who visit Gravesend like is the fact that it is different, quirky and full of character.
Where now?
It feels like the Talking Halls project is in the middle of a tangle of beliefs about the place of heritage in interpreting Gravesend's identity, which goes back to the earliest days of tourism and Victorian civic aspirations. Deciding how to tie together all the elusive treads is an ongoing debate (see also 'A Museum for Gravesham' feasibility study.)
How is it possible to respond to this situation as an artist? On one hand every aspect of the heritage story is interpreted in microscopic detail, leaving no room creative discovery. On the other hand the evocative objects and places that could spark original ideas are inaccessible, in store or have ceased to exist.
Perhaps the artist residency part of the project needs to draw back from the contested and highly scrutinized centre ground and seek out a wider perspective. Move instead to the margins.
Karen Butti, the restoration architect for the Old Town Hall, told me the story of how the workmen fixing the roof were very slow at completing their work because they kept stopping to watch the ships go by on the Thames. The roof is inaccessible now, but the desire to stand in the heart of the building and metaphorically look up and out to a clear horizon feels increasingly pressing.
Lucy
Rosher family album, showing a series of photos of Thames shipping. From Gravesend Library collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment