First Ride Out

A mellow spring day leads to this year’s first significant trip out on two wheels.

Leicester, March 2014

Without great ambition or any agenda, we spin along Leicester’s towpath, pausing to sample the latest clues in a favourite location, bathed in hazy sunlight and shivering reflections.  A salvaged trolley lies between concrete pillars like an encrusted cliché.

All Images: Leicester, March 2014

Further along, we come upon more dramatic changes where planners have decreed a new river bridge in advance of major redevelopment.  This whole section is undergoing a process of transformation from dereliction and lost industry, to estate living and the knowledge economy.  An air of tantalising anticipation hangs over another tract of wilderness, about to give way to the future.  These are precious last days.

All Images: Leicester, March 2014

Where a new route has opened up, along a damaged causeway, we discover a previously hidden enclave of decaying buildings, abandoned by dead or relocated businesses.  Overlooked by broken or bricked-in windows lie piles of detritus, - each an identifier of the individual companies who fled, or of opportunistic fly tippers.  Commerce abhors a vacuum, even in retreat. 

Both Images: Leicester, March 2014

Drawn further in, we capture banks of car tyres, and drifts of fabric, garment hangers and label ribbons.  Elsewhere, a mound of smashed plasterboard is reconstituted into a complex geological model.  We find enough water fountain vessels to rehydrate every city office and, a lovely yellow grove of lemon juice bottles.

All Images: Leicester, March 2014

Our shots are backgrounded by the polychromatic murals of aerosol artists.  Unchallenged, and with time to indulge themselves, they become ambitious, - creating a gallery where it is least likely to be seen.  A huge face glowers at us, violet with anger, as angular letterforms twist themselves beyond legibility.

Both Images: Leicester, March 2014

Finding unsecured doors invitingly ajar, we cross the threshold into some real Urban Exploration.  Melancholy light enters through shattered roof panels and the geometry of roof trusses.  Recent rain puddles floors crunching with grit and a scattered archaeology of automotive components, beyond all repair.  Offices and rest rooms are reduced to bleak cells and, (a propped mattress suggests), someone’s bedroom.  Discarded tools and unexplained, totemic stacks appear like obscure messages from a lost civilisation.  A boneless hand lays camouflaged on a red-painted floor.

All Images: Leicester, March 2014

Remerging into the hazy afternoon light, we gaze upon an advancing frontier of residential hutches cloaked in blandness, and of new economic imperatives too obscure to fathom.

Leicester, March 2014