Overview
33 High St, a site with a lively and somewhat chequered history, is now home to a new public artwork that responds to the environment and changes along with it. Concrete Playground catches up with Martin Poppelwell to get the dirt on his latest organic installation.
In the early 1990s 33 High St was the Box and Cause Celebre, a noted night spot where music and mischief abounded. After life as a fashion store, the site recently morphed into an artist run space 'Snakepit', which hosted many a good show in its short life. The site currently stands empty save the life-sized artwork which acts as a literal 'holding pattern' while its fate is decided.
When commissioned to design a work specifically for the site, Martin's response was to look around and draw inspiration from the environment; Fryberg Place, the numerous fashion boutiques and of course the people who inhabit the space. "The 'seed' for the idea came from an afternoon of drawing small blossom shapes and then adding them to a set of drawings around jewellery and gems."
For the artist, trees represent a way of thinking. He uses the idea of a 'tree' as a diagram or a starting point for building visual information. "For 33 High St the trees were a starting point in a process that involves a 'drawing' changing with the seasons, and its ability to transform itself with the passing of time. The reworking of the grid on the wall as a sort of mesh allows me initially to 'measure' the site with the first drawing and begin introducing ' the tree diagram ' and see how it begins to activate the area. The drawing introduces thought into a space; the tree being built of organic lumps, waves, branches and sticks."
The organic nature of the work allows it to change in response to its environment, creating an artwork that is, in a sense 'interactive' like the trees it references. "I think that trees are much more suggestive than perhaps sculpture often is. Over time they establish their relationship with the ground and the elements that sculpture is unable to."
"I feel that I don't really make things for people to look at but more things that people can form a relationship with, so much like any elements within an environment my work in high street is subtley implicated in peoples' personal movements. In a sense I try to draw what one doesn't see or what a thing doesn't reveal."
The subject matter and process involved in creating the installation reflect its ephemeral nature. How long the artwork will be in place is anyone's guess, but while it lives on at 33 High St it will continue to change and grow with the urban environment around it. Next time you're out restocking your wardrobe, take a stroll past 33 High St to check out the trees and keep your eyes peeled for the festive summer transformation.
