Going Round in Circles: Collecting in Coventry

In 2014 I was commissioned to produce a piece of work for a small group exhibition being hosted by the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry. Shed - Collect - Shed was exhibited within the CCCA (the Coventry Centre for Contemporary Art - a shed erected on the mezzanine level of the Museum). The brief was to ‘creatively present found objects relating to Coventry in a way that captures a connection to the Museum’s own collection of archaeological artefacts’. I visited Coventry twice before producing a set of nine pieces of work – exploring using found objects, & representations of them, as a response to the brief.

Coventry has been circled by a ring road since the 1970s, and is also famed for its history of bicycle, car, speedometer and clock production. These circular emblems inspired me to do ‘round’ walks in Coventry, whilst collecting exclusively round objects from the streets to display as part of the ‘Shed – Collect – Shed: Coventry’s Lost & Found’ exhibition. The majority of the objects I found were packaging waste; lots of lost lids and caps, along with other objects like rubber bands, sweets, buttons, washers etc. I collected approximately 200 objects on the same day on four short walks in different areas of the city. They are ostensibly unsurprising ‘finds’, but constitute a true reflection of Coventry life; the remnants and remains discarded or lost, only to be found again on that day in June 2014.

I intended to attach significance to the objects by collecting, cleaning, classifying & re-presenting them in a new setting. Some methods of display are borrowed directly from the Herbert’s exhibition techniques, for example, wiring onto perspex or framing securely within foam. Others are using reproduction techniques to simplify the objects into two-dimensional graphic forms, using their silhouette for solar or screenprints, capturing their memory as a trace.

Like many city centres in England, Coventry is generally very clean - street cleaners are working hard, and there are plenty of bins. This project is not aimed to pass comment on how the council keep a city clean & habitable, or how a city’s population respond to litter, but it can begin to reflect how waste materials are generally undervalued and a disposable culture is seen as a normality. These objects function as contemporary archaeology, permitting a story from a privileged urban society, of many overlooked events, actions and, most importantly, resources.

Shed (v.):

to lose by natural process;

to be rid of (something not wanted or needed)

Collect (v.):

gather together to form a group,

accumulate, assemble

(v.) to regain control of

Shed (n.):

a small structure serving for storage or shelter

(v.) to give or impart; radiate or send forth (light, fragrance,

influence)