Art on the Underground: Our Pink Depot
- Submitting institution
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Goldsmiths' College
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 3673
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- An artist book, two soundworks, two performances and a set of cyanotype prints
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2019
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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A - Art
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- 'Our Pink Depot: The Gay Underground' was a two year project commissioned by Art on the Underground to coincide with the extension of the Northern Line, and the construction of new stations at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station. The initial proposal stage of 6 months resulted in a 49-minute performance undertaken with a drag king within the construction site of the tunnels. Further fieldwork over 18 months, comprising interviews, work at three archives and extended participant observation with engineers and miners resulted in an artist book, two further soundworks, a performance and a set of cyanotype prints.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The question was how to develop a new model of ‘temporal drag’ which brought into relation LGBT material, a ‘live’ mining/engineering site, and performance prioritising vocal expression. Temporal drag is Elizabeth Freeman’s term characterising the way in which embarrassing or excessive residues of history may be ‘dragged’ within artworks - exemplars are works by Sharon Hayes and Pauline Boudry-Renate Lorenz. The aim was to use the location’s local history as well as the promise of new public infrastructure to develop an innovative queer re-enactment._x000D_
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Commissioned and funded over two years by Art on the Underground alongside the new Northern Line extension, the complex project builds on Wakeford’s previous interest in the ‘unfinished business’ of past social movements and the ways in which performance can explore their ‘undetonated energy’, and extends this to deal with mining and engineering culture today._x000D_
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A six month scoping stage involved community history in the ‘gay triangle’ around Vauxhall and Nine Elms. A 49-minute performance with a drag king deep in the newly formed tunnels was subsequently mixed as a 5.1 sound work. Further fieldwork included shadowing TfL’s Head of Tunnelling on site, tracking down ex-DJs playlists, interviews with LGBTQ+ Underground staff, work at three archives and extended participant observation with engineers and miners._x000D_
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The final outputs (2019) comprised a performance at Matt’s Gallery, a 150 page book (publ. Bookworks), soundworks and four cyanotype prints, one of which was the basis of a poster installed the length of the Northern Line for three months. _x000D_
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The project demonstrated that performed re-enactment from oral sources in an earpiece offered a new way of doing temporal drag. Posters and writing-from-transcription allowed for complex and provocative juxtapositions between materials to be held together – the book proposing the new tunnels as ‘Our Pink Depot’.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -