Writers and artists collaborate on the personal value of home

The latest iteration of the Unreal Estates project, part-funded by the Arts Council, has been launched, seeing ten artists each paired with a writer to create new, collaborative works based on local properties on the market in the chosen cities of Bristol, Norwich, and Leeds.

Assembled by architecturally-trained curator Amanda Lwin, the project is best explored by browsing the imitation property website, www.unreal-estates.org, which plays out as a skewed reimagining of what we see and feel when faced with a picture of home.

“These evocative works bring together a few of the visions and memories of British cities beneath the bricks and mortar, clay and cobbles; past the standardised visions of domestic utopia we see in advertising and on TV,” says Lwin.

In Bristol, chosen artists Steve Burden, Merny, Stacey Pamplin and Ruth Wallace were paired with Georgie Bailey (playwright and poet), Miles Chambers (former Bristol city poet), KM Elkes (flash fiction specialist) and Rebecca Kosick (poetry academic) respectively.

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Steve Burden x Georgie Bailey

Delving into the history of a barge at Bristol’s City Docks, Burden and Bailey’s collaboration harks back to the city’s maritime past, with Burden’s rich frenzy of oils accompanying Bailey’s five-part narrative poem The Waters of Brygstow.

“George’s text is all about memory – the history of the boat – it wasn’t about what it is now it’s about what it was,” reflects Burden. “I photographed the houseboat and wanted to take it back via paint to what it used to be – back to the future via whirlpools of paint.”

Beachley Bristol 3259 – image: Steve Burden

ii. the marooned | 1947

I hear the echoes of tides brushing against their lovers // in a dock of new dawns they’re now calling home // Avonmouth // As a twin of mine did its final venture out of this land, they conjured up thoughts of how to ethically slaughter us // Scrap us // Burn us // Drown us

The gulls creak overhead // The sails whistle lazily, hungry for bed // The sailors sing from down the road, a different melody from usual // A heavy lament // I lie dormant in this dry dock // thinking of that which hums in the wind.

(extract from The Waters of Brygstow, Georgie Bailey)

A moment in time – image: Steve Burden

https://twitter.com/Unreal_Estates/status/1464196845736017968

Stacey Pamplin x Rebecca Kosick

Pamplin was inspired by ‘material dialogues’ and points of tension and craft within a decaying barn structure, to make new work combining wood, metal and clay.

“These works are relics – preserving the essence of a building soon to be returned to the ground,” she notes. “By drawing on the material nuances that give this barn meaning beyond function, I have created works that have become a tangible memory of the barn – a keepsake.”

Mirroring Pamplin’s sense of the organic, Kosick’s words are assembled and interpreted on the page, converging and diverging again, her sentences dismantled and wrought anew.

Slate, upright – photo: Stacey Pamplin

https://twitter.com/Unreal_Estates/status/1463875312383574024

Debri – photo: Stacey Pamplin

Merny x Miles Chambers

The collaboration between watercolour and mural painter Merny and Chambers arose from conversations about the history of Bristol, and “the potential energy or influence, which can be left behind” when looking one fixed place over many points in time.

Gettingaggi – image: Merny

Through six paintings and a poem, they chose to tell the story of a “fairly unremarkable” maisonette in St Paul’s, built on the site of the former Black and White Café: “an important café to the local caribbean community in St Paul’s in the 1980s, but one which gained a national reputation as one of Britain’s most dangerous drug dens”.

Uprising – image: Merny

Subjected to frequent raids than any other café in the UK, the Black and White Café was at the centre of Operation Delivery in 1986, in which over 600 police attempted to stop gang-related violence.

27 Grosvenor Road – image: Merny

No 27: Description

I know what you’ve been through,
You didn’t always look so brand new
I looked into the double glazed, squared windows
Of your soul, and its true, memories of your
Rebellious convictions shine through
“Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth”
attitude, to me you’re so see thru,
I’d be quiet, but you’re right in my field of view
Shall I tell you what I see when I look at you?
27 doesn’t describe your plight,
I still see a bruised sign, “The Black and White”
Your retentive consciousness still radiates thru
The compulsory purchase of your identity
Indelible printed images of militants uprising
Stick to me like glue

(Extract from No 27, Miles Chambers )

Ruth Wallace x KM Elkes

As their inspiration, Wallace and Elkes studied a house on Guinea St that was featured on David Olusoga’s television programme A House Through Time (BBC Two).

Wallace’s dark and ominous drawings are heavy with the weight of the history that pervades the walls, staircases and hallways she depicts.

Guinea Street 1 (basement steps) – image: Ruth Wallace

Writing the viewing instructions of the fictional estate agent attempting to sell a whitewashed property, Elkes was consumed by questions of a living past: “Do past human dramas leave indelible stains? Is a home furnished as much with memories and forgettings, as it is with sofas and tables and beds? What does the term property mean, when a house is built, like many in Bristol, on the profits of slavery?”

Viewing Instructions

When you go up the stairs, encourage clients to look over the bannisters, so they can fully appreciate the many levels of this house. Don’t encourage them to stare too long. Don’t let them see the swallowed light of stairwells, or how, down in the gloom, spindles have turned the colour of old bones.

(Extract from Viewing Instructions, KM Elkes)

The exhibition Unreal Estates is available online now. In 2022, there will be real life exhibitions at estate agents in each of the focus cities of the project: Sowerby’s in Norwich, Linley & Simpson in Leeds and Ocean on Whiteladies Road

Main photo: Steve Burden

Read more: Major retrospective for Bristol-born Stephen Gill

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