Strictly Ball Room.

Since January 1st 2007 I, zocoo dizzyache, have been collecting balls from the canal and river. These balls are nomadic they have no fixed abode they have been abandoned and have taken refuge in the locks and weeds where gradually they begin to blend in with their surroundings. The balls have come from far and wide and no doubt once were someones pride. Now cast asunder, cast aside they wander aimless and hopeless and gradually lose their will to live. When I was a child a ball would have been a very valuable commodity and would never have escaped ..but these days kids have it all and are of a different breed ….we would have climbed into any river any stream and fished out a stray ball ….our mothers didn’t worry about where we were or what we were up to….no ball would have gone astray back in the day. In third world countries they make foot balls with wicker or wire….. Any how, as I said I have been collecting the balls since January and creating an archive. The care taker on our estate lets me store them in the shed, I think I have well over forty, maybe fifty. They all have a little story attached to them and I like the way that each story ties up neatly with my interest in serendipity…which I actually believe is not really about coincidence….i met a woman who was once a systems analysist , I want to find out how much chance and accident really exist ……I do not think they do ….i think that every thing has a pattern it is just that our comprehension is not big enough to understand what is happening around us. These balls fall into the river and into the lock, what is the chance of that happening…must be great because I have collected so many balls…what are the chances of the balls getting stuck in a lock for months and months because the lock gate is broken and the side slip river dreid up…and then the day I finally get my Polaroid to start the project is the day …1st jan …that some clever bastard manages to work open the lock gate and free all the balls …not only that , but we have so much rain on Dec 30th that the dried up river becomes a torrent and I have to wade in and rescue what few balls are left. I manage to lose my Cartier ring in the process…but then three weeks later…for real yeah….find it in the stream!!!!!! I have watched the balls come and go and even the ones that I think have gotten away somehow make it back again. I am not sure how the ball project will end ….i may put an advert in the times ………….asking if anyone recognises the missing balls or I may cast them and make floaty copies which can form a buoyant sculpture piece in the river……….these balls have their own poetry and song to sing. They encapsulate some thing of our throw away culture…the canals were once a mode of transporting goods and wares into London, now they carry plastic bottles and balls. The canals are home to so many birds and provide a peaceful backdrop to city life where many people stroll, jog, ride their bikes , walk their dogs and row their boats….maybe my ball project will reflect some of the sadness I feel when I see how neglectful we have become of our waning natural habitats…………..here is the ball project. Today when I was collecting balls I saw Max from East enders so I got his signature……just for luck.

" Knowledge does not belong to anything human. Knowledge belongs to that which has to do with nature. it belongs to the universe, but it doesn't belong to eternity, and there is a big difference.."
Louis I. Khan.

Lee Valley Parks Management and British waterways have agreed in principle to support the Ball project. I am negotiating where and how the project will be realised. I have begun making casts of the balls thanks to the wonderful support i have been getting from the tutor and technician in London Met,s 3D department. Fred and Greg...so a very huge thankyou to them both ...
The process is gorgeous and quite a relief from painting. The moulding and casting is not so disimilar to work undertaken in the kitchen, mixing, stirring, rolling out, pouring and smoothing...it's quite sensual too. These photos capture thre yumminess of the process.

Project evolves.

There have not been so many balls this year. I am really at quite a loss as to why. Perhaps someone further up stream has been getting to the balls before me. No matter. I have enough balls now to cast them to make a floating sculpture, whose life will be transient and a more permnent sculpture as tribute to the ones who went away.

I have become a member of a local nature group based at Stonebridge Lock and they are really happy for me to present Art based activities and events to the public as they would like to promote the Lee Valley Park through Art.

I am currently investigating the costs of plaster, clay and concrete and learning how to slip cast and make plaster moulds. I am also working with the Harringey Project Director to see how I can cast the Balls with a group of women from a Harringey Out reach group. The women will be drawn from culturally diverse backgrounds and currently live in a very run down part of Tottenham and have few opportunities to enjoy art , nature or collaborative projects. They often feel alienated and unable to contribute to their estranged communities.

Our project will start with a trip to the Tate Britain and then to the Tate Modern. We will look at art and discuss the point of Art. We will talk about the ideas behind Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth as I strongly feel there is a connection in our ideas. My work is inspired by the River Lee. It has been used as a natural dividing line by past rulers and it has been the passage taken by many invaders in the last two thousand years. The Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Many of Tottenhams inhabitants are transcient and to the less tolerant of the so called British, the arm chair or pub stool polititians, are seen as invaders who come to get our jobs and houses. Many race intolerant people do not realise they are descended from ancestral invaders , French, German and so on.

The ladies will make the balls into a beautiful sculpture which will float and be sybollic of the transitory nature of human migration and of liberty. The permanent sculpture ...made of concrete balls will be laid beside the Lock restaurant , located next to Tottenham Lock. The slip stream has a concrete base and only ever flows at about three inches, so the balls will not be in any ones way..

The project will link with my next venture which will be to build a raft from the redundant wooden palettes at Tottenham Lock Wood yard...which is waiting to be sold for redevelopment.Though a certain gallery in the east end seem to have used this idea already....they must have spies....

The raft will be made with children..(well from wood and made by children!) from a local play project andbe rowed down thecanal to Stonebridge Lock...with the help of a local rowing club... . Later this raft will be turned into compost bins . We will be visiting the 'shed' which won Simon Starling the Turner Prize two years ago....so we can discuss...the topic..."is this art...?"

The raft will be used to transport the balls down to The Lock. .... perhaps we can have a mini exhibition on it...!

Beautifully reflecting a half dissolved pastille
Grey bluish shadows,
Intricate lattice of white circles and umbras,
More solid than clouds ,
Pollution and a basically beautiful corrosion of patinas .