Manufactory and The Altogether
Coekin, Chris Manufactory and The Altogether. [Exhibition/show, Photography, Sound art]
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This multi-layered project investigates notions of art, work and struggle. It was made in collaboration with factory workers who are not normally engaged with artistic practice. The 1834 factory is one of the UK's oldest industrial environments; it recently closed, making the workforce redundant.
The exhibition comprises three photographic series, and a vinyl record. The Altogether focuses on the manual workers themselves. The series takes its name from a little-known trade union: in considering how to portray the workers, I found inspiration in the iconography and theatricality of union banners, and appropriated many of the stances they portray. Manufactory Part I investigates the overlooked industrial space, where a collision between nature, toil and the manufacturing process has occurred, resulting in a metamorphosis that has created a geographical micro-environment. Manufactory Part II (aka Made in England) developed from Part 1, as during my explorations I started to unearth old manual tools, which become symbols of a 'lost work force'. These 'finds' were then photographed floating on a bed of black industrial oil.
Days at the Factories and CuS04 Shuffle are reverse sides of a vinyl record, and were produced using audio recordings from the same factory. My aim was to subvert the ambient sound from the factory floor and turn it into something more musical. Days... includes the men in the factory reciting a verse I wrote, which references various agitprop writings, and literature by George Dodd, a 19th-century chronicler of industrialism. CuSO4... appropriates the atomic element diagram for copper as the basis for a musical score. Exhibition audiences are invited to play the records (emphasizing ideas of collaboration and performance) on vintage record players – using a technology essentially unchanged since its inception.
The work was originally funded by the Arts Council UK, and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and has toured globally.
The photographic book by Chris Coekin, The Altogether, was published by Walkout Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780955596216.
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