She Had a Pickaxe

Excerpt from workshop

This is a workshop about site seeing and site foreseeing. 

I would like us to think about what The Centre for Alternative Technology used to be: the wildflowers among the slate before CAT was established; the self-proclaimed Crazy Idealists founding members who set up this place; the ideas that have sprung from here; but also what this place might be; what plants, people and proposals would we like to see here. So I would like us to to celebrate, to ask questions, to make propositions by reenacting, reactivating and reimagining the radical origins of this place. 

We do so to confront the proposition which Roderick James, architect of the first buildings here, posed to CAT at the end of the Radio 4 programme Reunion. He said: “We now need to think: where do we need to be 40 years from now. It’s surprisingly difficult, but I think ethics in society and a vision for the future, that’s what we need to get to work on, but not just talking about it.” 

We will work in pairs to develop an intervention and activation on site. To help I have conceived of a series of 6 creative approaches which Zoë Quick has provided invaluable help, contacting colleagues and friends, visiting national archives, yurt makers, recycled paint manufacturers. 

This morning we will first engage in dramaturgy, by reading archival resources: photographs, drawings, plans, leaflets. handwritten notes of items being begged, meals and washing up duties, collective aims, a spoof letter from Buckingham Palace asking about solar panels to keep corgis warm. These relate to CAT’s site, context, social relations and reinforce how the staff never simply withdrew from society but operated through alternative means to effect widespread change more meaningfully.

After lunch we will get to devising, by taking a selection of this archival material on site to test ideas.

During tea we will consider strategy by talking through our ideas with some Crazy Idealists.

Before dinner we will write, paint, cut, fold our slogans, images onto canvas each related to a different sites and addressing different aspects: 

ON THIS SITE…. (what happened), 
FROM THIS SITE… (plan what could happen)
BETWEEN THESE SITES… (how we can connect)
BEFORE THIS SITE (acknowledge what used to be)
AFTER THIS SITE (consider our legacy)
BEYOND THIS SITE (address other communities)
DESPITE THIS SITE… (what others do) 
WITH THIS SITE (what we can do)
TOWARDS THIS SITE (what is not yet achieved)

Tomorrow morning we will choreograph an activation on site.

And finally before lunch we will perform these series of activations together.

This is a lot to do, so I will help to clarify at each stage. To unify our activations, we take as our inspiration the Cretan windmill which stands as an enduring symbol of CAT, giving its form to CAT’s logo. With Zoë’s extraordinary help, we have triangular sections of yurt canvas hanging from poles. Each of us will work on one of these sections to make a banner, flag, shelter that we will plant, hang, lay on site. 

The workshop will culminate in a parade/procession through CAT chanting a composite text from archival fragments, planting and unfurling ideas as triangles of cretan windmill, with slogans written on them, located in different areas across the site culminating in a communal meal. 

Parade chorus

Heavy rain all day

BC: Before CAT

Rain early, clearing later

In the beginning everyone was a volunteer
Built from scratch from available material and scrap

Intermittent rain all day

We open next year
But come and meet before that
Join in now at the very beginning
and help us build

Rain early, clearing later

To say at once if someone is not fitting in

Fine and sunny early, but showers after noon

Diana Brass held the place together
without her it would have collapsed
she was an amazing woman
she had a pickaxe

Intermittent rain

We are not that alternative

Showers

The whole atmosphere was totally bizarre
He probably owes his life to a macramé demonstration 
run by Lena, the post lady

Intermittent rain

Probably the prettiest toilet block in the country
Ideologically sound brown rice

Rain and wind all day

Nearly half a million people have walked up the drive
Some have walked back down again unchanged
But some have walked down to build their first

Rain early, clearing later

It was magic!