Artefacts of Hope

As part of Creative Health’s This Way Up* artist Justin Wiggan devised and delivered Artefacts of Hope, a project exploring peoples relationships to toys and the meanings they hold.

Supported by artists Priya Mistry, Carolyn Morton, Ildiko Nagy, Alice Thatcher and Jamila Walker, Justin collected personal stories from people at Wolverhampton Library and Ashmore Park Café about their beloved childhood toys, inviting people to complete a series of questions on specifically designed response cards. The responses people gave were honest and poetic and it seemed the questions tapped into positive emotional memories.

 Justin, along with James Ockelford and Gareth Courage, created emblems for each one of the responses, inspired by accomplishment badges and heraldry shields as a recognition of the value and accomplishment of the responses given.

*This Way Up was a creative wellbeing project, delivered by Creative Health (arts and Health) CIC, for people living in Wolverhampton and Staffordshire from November 2016 until July 2017.

For more on this project visit the facebook page here.

Bunny Plays the drums

by Jamie Holman

1.

You needed a ticket to speak to someone. After heaving double doors, the security guard would gesture, wordless, for you to queue for a ticket. You tore your ticket, ripping it awkwardly and sat on the plastic chairs, razor edged and attached in rigid lines in front of the long desk of cubicles that mirrored the counter of a bank. No deposits were ever made except for the ten page forms that were passed and returned and passed again with the hope of a withdrawal of some kind contained amongst the tick boxes and scrawled personal details demanded. Most withdrawals will simply be for a few quid to pay the meter, buy some shoes for the kids or a meal until Monday and signing on, or until Post Offices open and Income Support books can be cashed. Emergency loans, emergency groans and silent howls of despair from the rows of seats as you wait your turn to beg. There was a flip numbered clock that didn’t tell the time, it only told you when it was your number, your slot, your chance. The number would suddenly, and awkwardly flip over and someone, a family, a couple, a pensioner, smack head or scruff would approach the empty seat in desperation. Always in desperation, you wouldn’t wait five hours otherwise. Desperate people carry themselves differently; hunchbacked, coiled like cobras, occasionally stretching as if to cast off the worry they carry. It slips back on immediately of course and the weight of it makes eyes glaze over in a quiet but absolute public horror. I pull my ticket, pink with the number 407 in black ink and look for a seat. A shrill, dull voice reads out the next number, 399 over the cracked speakers, but often the next person is already sat in the cubicle, leaning in and begging before the number can be read.

“would you be in my grave as quick ?”

Occasionally no one stands up as the number flips and is then called. A grumbling spreads like bird song and gravel, growing in volume and in irritation, punctuated by sighs and sputters until the next number flips and the voice is heard again. The room is hot and at once silent and deafeningly noisy as people stare at their feet, the ceiling or tug their crying kids, pulling at sleeves and collars, hissing “behave” and worse. No smiles, no laughter no hope of help but hoping for it regardless. A pensioner bewildered, well turned out in neat skirt, over coat and head scarf with upright tartan edged trolley stares forward and wonders how and why am I here? the rest of us know why and if not how, so the why doesn’t matter. We just are. And we are waiting.

2.

Batteries are the most luxurious item I own. Batteries facilitate the aesthetic of my mill town days, transforming the tower block to sky scraper, the empty Blackburn factories into Detroit waste lands, the cobbled alley way becomes a Parisian side street and the people are now actors who are living a role not dying alone.

Anything can happen.

Press play.

They are the power to the soundtrack to the film of my life.

Press Play.

The music that saves me from the minutes I am in.

Press Play.

Without batteries I am in the world completely.

Press Play Press Play Press Play

Without Batteries the records I collect and treasure are trapped on the top floor of Lark Hill flats, in a room I must leave every day.

The records become tapes and the tapes are fuelled by the batteries that drive them.

I don’t carry many tapes, perhaps two, one in the Walkman, one in the pocket. Occasionally I carry a third that has ‘What goes on’ by the Velvet Underground for one whole side and ‘Upside down’ by The Jesus and Marychain for the whole of side two.

For days like these.

Press Play.

We’re moving ’round and ’round
Can’t hear a single sound
And when I hit the ground
I heard a ringing sound

I fumble for the volume and push the slider up to the top

And if you feel there’s no one else
You’re all alone and by yourself
Your life is like a broken shell
It really doesn’t matter to me

My eyes strain on the clock, waiting for my number to flip.

Upside down
Upside down
Upside down
Upside down

I am well into the next side and the glorious solo in ‘What goes on,’ by the time I am in the cubicle and begging for money in advance for the key that feeds my electricity meter and some food money until Monday.

There is no pity in the eyes that see me and no shame in the gaze I return. I know what she imagines and I hate her for it, not me.

Press Play

One minute born, one minute doomed,
One minute up, one minute down.
What goes on in your mind?
I think that I am falling down

I am looking for work.
I will go to job club.
I am not a drug user.
I am looking for work.
I will make a C.V.
I am available for work.
I am looking
I am looking
I am looking
Press Play
Press Play
Press Play

Baby, be good, do what you should,
you know it will work alright.
Baby, be good, do what you should,
you know it will be alright.

“And what do you need the loan for Mr. Holman ?”

“Food.” I reply in meek tone.

“Drugs” her raised eye brows imply

What goes on in your mind?
I think that I am falling down

The tape is slowing, grinding to a halt.

What goes on in your mind?
I think that I am upside down.

The words become drones and soon will stop

Play wont press

I beg for food but I need money for batteries.

Duracell batteries.

Press Play

The copper coloured top.

Press Play

Duracell who sponsor the Rovers

Press Play

The rabbit with the drum that keeps on keeping on like Bobby Gillespie and Mo Tucker, stood up, pounding, relentless

Press Play

The rabbit that hammers out the soundtrack to the film I am in.

The one where I win.

Where I lift the trophy and get out of here.

Press Play
Press Play
Press Play
Press Play

Baby, be good, do what you should, you know it will work alright.

Baby, be good, do what you should, you know it will be alright.

Don’t forget to remember

By Dan Edwards

They’ve just re-released the Raleigh Burner. I always wanted a Raleigh burner. All the bigger cooler kids had them. I had to ride around on my mums old shopper.

No wait a minute, no I didn’t. I had an unbranded BMX – it was yellow and red. I didn’t know what a Raleigh Burner was, never mind want one. I had my bike. I could ride around on it and go to the sweet shop. I loved my bike. I don’t know what it was but it was my bike.

I wanted a chopper though, everyone wanted a chopper. All the bigger cooler kids had choppers.

No – I’m too young to have wanted a chopper, I can’t have wanted a chopper either.

Memories of my child-hood possessions seem to have been filtered through other peoples loudly exclaimed version of events. Pub conversations about half remembered cartoons, reciting lines learnt from “I love The 1970’s” in an imaginary lingua franca.

Well I never had a space hopper, I never ate spangles and I’ve never even seen a stretch Armstrong in the flesh. I don’t want to reminisce about things I didn’t have as a child.

We definitely had a box of star wars figures, me and my brother. they were mixed up with our Lego and a Man-at-arms figure. We didn’t dream of some fabled version of Darth Vader with a special cape though. We just played with the ones we had. And we certainly didn’t keep them in the packets and lay them down like fine wines to appreciate in value either. Elaborate multi-stranded stories were spread out over the living room carpet with no mind given to discrepancies in height ratios between characters. There might have been a couple of action men in there as well, in Gran knitted ski outfits, but I can’t say for certain if they had eagle eyes or posable thumbs.

A few years ago my brother gave them all away to a little boy who’s mum he worked with. We had never had them stand on teenage shelves as totems to our recent childhood and they had been locked away gathering dust. The little boy was made up. His mum sent us pictures of him playing with them. The image of him sat on the floor surrounded by what had, till then, just become lumps of plastic taking up valuable storage space now showed them in the process of transformation back into living things. Like Toy Story come real. They became real toys again and I could remember loving them. They gave me the Proustian rush that all those tipsy reminiscences never had. Funny that it took giving them away for them to come back to me.

The past is a foreign country

by Andrew Kulman (an Illustrator and Professor of Graphic Art at Birmingham City University)

Its apt to remember one’s first toy, I can honestly say I can recall the toy, the texture, the distinct smell, colours and name. It was a small 6’ bendy Popeye, its texture was pitted rubber, painted in bright primary colours and I went and buried it somewhere in the garden…this was subsequently lost and an uproar caused leading to a replacement being found. In my less reliable memory I found the original years later, decomposing, the colours shining through the soil encased carcass.

Here is the essence of Justin’s project, attachment, loss and memory. Perhaps rediscovery if we’re lucky enough. Touching our ‘lost memories’ sends us hurtling back in our Proustian glass elevator; there I am in the borders of the garden I’ve not seen for thirty years…looking around.

Toys do something to us; we identify them with our past, with long forgotten needs, with joy or envy, with promises and disappointment. Recently I was searching for Captain Scarlet Anglo Bubblegum cards and Action Man in Jungle Explorer outfit on the Internet. Its so easy to search online and find the exact same thing you owned available to ‘Buy Now’ on eBay, never has access to the past been so affordable, like the promise of travel into space, we can now with the push of a key or two jump straight into our childhood. I must confess I do buy objects and ephemera from time to time on trading sites but that instant gratification, the coveting of plastic and tin the desperate need to own is not the same as having it for the first time.

All of us need to catalogue and compartmentalize our past, as we age memory seems to self select what we keep stored, sometimes we doubt our own recollection, ‘did I actually own this or that?’ Recently I’ve made several display cabinets full of retrieved toys and childhood artefacts in the hope someone will comment or share their memories. In someway this is exactly what Justin is doing with this project, provoking discussion and prompting us to travel back wards.

I showed Justin some of my favourite toys and what became apparent when selecting was the tactile quality of the item. A squeezy Mr Man, which let out a sharp squeak. This was particularly satisfying because of the distinct printed graphic of Roger Hargreaves’s character, the smooth chunky vinyl mold, and the manufacturer’s letters embossed. Why this toy? I realized that as a Graphic Artist/ Illustrator it would naturally draw me in, a simple line and colour flat image made three dimensional, a tangible souvenir, artefact you could hold rather than stare at. My vocation in life has been largely formed from childhood; you can trace your steps, each one in my case. The lost Popeye representing so many things I still carry with me. It’s been said that when Pixar bring out Cars 3 despite the fact it’s a tired idea, they know young children will want to own mini versions of the big screen characters, its not so dissimilar to when in the 1920’s, people loved buying Felix and Mickey Mouse toys, likewise the same for me in the 1960’s wanting a Yogi Bear or Flintstone toy.

Recently I have been lucky enough to visit Hong Kong and it was whilst visiting a educational institution I met an academic who ran a toy research centre. The academic was Rene Leclerc who made me aware of the district we were in. East Tsim Sha Tsui was the centre of the plastic toy industry from the latter pat of the last century. The phrase we are familiar with ‘Made in Hong Kong’ often synonymous with cheap and poor alternatives to the real thing. Even now I think of the raised letters on plastic, as if stamped there because the toy had to declare its poor status. For many years my heart sank reading those words whenever I turned a toy upside down. My father was dismissive of these cheap artefacts, made in Hong Kong. I couldn’t have known where it even was, for all I knew it might have been a warehouse on the moon.

Rene had collected many of the toy examples from factories closing down, his office was like a treasure cave, things I recognized, others I had never seen before but could well imagine a time they were readily available. It was a strange feeling to suddenly find myself in ‘Made in Hong Kong” there was a lot to like about it and I felt shame that I had been drawn into part of some xenophobic conspiracy to boycott foreign goods. Since those days I have often noticed the word ‘Foreign’ stamped onto older artefacts. ‘Foreign’ is another place, perhaps, East Germany, Austria or Italy, perhaps even where my father had come from?

Wherever it is, I want to go there now.