THE WAY WE WERE

July 2007

It is hard to shout about what is normal and mundane. It is just there; The everyday. Making us feel there is always something to do yet nevertheless feeling the urge to slack off; watch the birds, drink tea or do nothing much at all.

Have I described what this project is about? Well no. It would be the recounting of one thing after another. Just that. Going on and on and on. Which would be boring. Better to be there in person. Only we are being closed down at the end of the year.

What does that actually mean? That we will lose a piece of land? That there will be a lock on the gate? That we will have no right to enter either alone or together?

We`ve been coming here for seven years. Doing things or relaxing. First it was a mess-tarmac and brambles. We cleared it-set up pathways. Set up places to stop-seats or areas where plants came together or parted to give a nice view. We even put in our own toilet; another place to stop.

We`ve had nice times here; sharing cake, cracking walnuts-potatoes on the fire, kebabs and salad. Then there`s been times when it`s rained and we`ve got drenched, or we`ve been bashed around and shredded by our own efforts to get the space in shape. We`ve shaped ourselves in this way; bruises, cuts. And a sense of the ground below and the air above.

That`s how somehow we have ended up in a living situation. Even though we`re “Autistic” or “Mental Health Survivors” or somehow out of touch with the flow of society. So how did that happen? It never meant to go that far but somehow it did.

We don`t ask why. We put plants in the earth- pick up stones and re-position them, pile up bricks into impossible shapes that are there and then are rearanged. We are detectives following the movement of birds, foxes, and one another. We read into the marks of what is there to know about what happened before. It seems obvious: That you need a fixed space with unchanging borders to know about change just as you need a rectangle of paper in order that ideas can merge and reformulate to express thoughts.

Without telling you our conversations, showing you the garden, the way we look, the sculptures we make perhaps you can get a sense of who we are.

We are you. We need consistancy at one level in order to follow movement at another. We do that when we cook, take the garbage out, chat, socialise or think.

The person on the street. Who are they? Where are they going? Are they coming to the garden, going home, meeting others, going to work?. How can you tell- is it the way they look, the way they talk, the way they move?

People with a Special Need once they are diagnosed somehow become the property of the institutions that define them. It is a two- way enclosure whereby they are wrapped around policy decisions and the decisions get stuck to and influence their every movement. A downward spiral of “safety” sometimes takes hold whereby what is “Safe” is the inside of a room with a screen projecting adverts of the “right life”.

Autistic rage may flare up when their own movements are locked and they are, day in and day out, forced to witness untouchable icons of “right living”. Or else these icons are re-claimed as rituals and lived out as obsessional merry-go-rounds; words may be used in this way or actions such as hand-washing or tea drinking.

We all have a right to a private life where we can construct our own meanings.

Yes, bricks are for building houses with; homes where we live. But they can also become mutable and elastic, built up and knocked down according to what we feel is right. No we would not do that with our homes and to do so would be innapropriate, but Art is about taking things locked in situations which when frozen may become deadly, and letting them rearange and so re emerge.

Mostly we do not have to constantly remind ourselves what is real-life and what is not. We hold these things together between us so that what we know becomes common knowledge. But when that is not the case we are in a potentially dangerous situation. If our real house becomes a fable to others, we face anihilation on every turn. If what is actually a fable to us is taken with deadly seriousness by everyone around us, we are most likely always going to be in trouble.

Sharing experience and believing that there is a world that exists in common is about atunement. That means doing everyday boring domestic things over and over again and calling the results of those many simultaneous or parallel actions a shared space. It also means having systems in place to record this presence in tangible symbols which is why we make sculptures and do large colour drip paintings together. It means seeing people when they are up and when they are down and embedding them in the garden with all their tangents as necessary elements to the whole. It means a sense of acceptance even when things get tedious, annoying, difficult or seemingly impossible.

We are not ideal people and the garden is not an ideal space. We are not doing things in the best way all the time and we are not the best problem solvers all the time. But we have our way which is ours; not the imprint or off-shoot of someone elses idea of where functionality begins and where it ends in us. We know that those people, just like us are part of the story and part of the reality. We all help to define one another. The garden is simply about acknowledging that this goes on and will carry on going on. Only by being present in a space where everyone has responsibility do we manage things according to what is real to our everyday situation. That`s important for a sense of who we are.
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Memory Gardens will be closed down at the end of the year by NCH who want the land back.




Ruth Solomon

Co-ordinatotor Memory Gardens



July 2007





We are situated in Legard Road, N4 next to Peter Bedford housing association at the back of NCH head office, Lucerne Rd.