We've neglected the blog recently while turning our attention to finishing work for our exhibition at the Cornerstone. This is coming together and will open next week. Here are the details:
We would love to hear about your own thoughts and memories relating to Didcot A and will have a space to display memorabilia, newspaper clippings, drawings and photographs... Please hand these in at the desk at Cornerstone arts centre. Don't bring originals as we cannot return them.
Here's our press release...
We would love to hear about your own thoughts and memories relating to Didcot A and will have a space to display memorabilia, newspaper clippings, drawings and photographs... Please hand these in at the desk at Cornerstone arts centre. Don't bring originals as we cannot return them.
Here's our press release...
Barbaresi & Round were
commissioned by South Oxfordshire District Council and RWEnpower to create a
body of work around the closure of Didcot A power station, looking back at its
active life over 43 years.
Part of looking back at Didcot A’s working life is
exploring the wider question of how 1960’s and 70’s technology can be perceived
in the present. Didcot A was one of a number of large-scale coal fired power
stations built at a similar time. Barbaresi & Round became particularly
interested in the ingenuity of engineers in modifying and adapting machinery in
practice, and details such as the graphic qualities and layout of switches in
the control room.
For most people the cooling towers are the immediately
obvious association with Didcot A. However relatively few people are able to
get up close to the towers or see the intricate and monumental workings that
lie beyond. For the gallery installation Barbaresi & Round have constructed
a 1:1 scale model of a section of a cooling tower. Inside the gallery it is a
fragment, but brings to mind the enormity of the whole it evokes. Alongside the
construction is a scale model of the power station made by children from Northbourne CE Primary
School.
As both a major local employer and monumental
structure in the landscape Didcot A evokes a range of associations and
relationships. A crucial part of Barbaresi & Round’s working process has
been engaging with people who have interacted with Didcot A in different ways.
These include employees, retired employees, Didcot residents and a school group. The different perspectives have initiated ideas for the
gallery installation, and some of these alternative ways of seeing Didcot A are
presented in the accompanying artist’s book.
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