Fortified

Birmingham, August 2013

This is my last full post about the cycle ride I made along Birmingham’s canals recently with my friend David Weight.  As already mentioned, most of the photographs I collected that day fell into a number of clear themes.  Those shown here all relate to the issue of security, something that seems to be of ever increasing concern in our society these days.

Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2013

The first of these subjects was the ramshackle barricaded window close to where we parked.  It seems a perfect reflection of the Digbeth district in its tenacious defence of an impoverished property using crude but effective means.  It's exactly the kind of matter of fact solution one arrives at in an edgy neighbourhood with limited resources and no interest in style. Of course, it’s typically such qualities that captivate my eye far more than anything done with more finesse or refinement. Through the juxtaposition of geometric timbers and sinuous barbed wire, it achieves a kind of inept beauty that I recognised immediately.

Birmingham, August 2013

Fortified fences, high walls and barbed or razor wire entanglements were much in evidence thoughout our ride from Digbeth to Gravelly Hill Interchange.  This is hardly a surprise given that secluded canal paths are of as much use to the nocturnal criminal as they are to the urban explorer seeking alternative routes through a city.  Nevertheless, it’s illuminating to recognize just how casually we accept the routine defensive postures adopted to guard a paranoid society against itself.  This is something I alluded to in my ‘Sick’quartet of paintings completed early last year.  Those particular panels were produced partially in response to the summer riots of 2011 and included explicit references to steel security screens, arson and criminal damage.

'Sick 1 (S)', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2012

'Sick 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 300 cm X 60 cm (Overall), 2012

'Sick 1 (K)', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2012

I wont pretend this is all purely characteristic of contemporary society.  Defensive fortifications, and indeed criminal activity, aren't exactly new phenomena, after all.  Likewise, the wicked, scribbled silhouette of barbed wire against the sky is hardly an original photographic motif but it was impossible to resist the visual appeal of various examples we passed on our ride.

Birmingham, August 2013

In the event, the most dramatic example of security was the heavily fortified industrial building we encountered in the later stretches of the Birmingham & Fazeley cut.  Its dense, corroded mesh and barbed wire caging created a sinister, almost post apocalyptic effect and some terrific silhouettes.  I braked so abruptly when I discovered it that Dave nearly careered into my rear wheel.  Sometimes you just recognise one as soon as you see it.

Birmingham, August 2013