The Train Track and the Basket

This presentation is evidence of an investigation into the significance of Hull Railway Station as a meaningful site for a temporary artwork, titled 'The Train Track and the Basket', as part of the ‘Look Up’ series of art commissions taking place during Hull City of Culture 2017.

Although I am dealing in this artwork with established processes of woven structures, in exploring them, I feel I am on new ground. Starting from the First World War memorial entrance at Hull railway station, I will express how the tangential subject of transmigration comes into view. Subsequently I will present the artworks concept and rationale, through a focus on the transmigration of craft skills including a consideration of the creative conjunction of two seemingly disparate objects - the basket and the train track. I include within the presentation a visual record of my sources of reference in the form of a portfolio of found images, drawings, studio shots and archival research. These visual ideas should not be considered as a full stop; rather I hope to show how a work may reveal itself on panes of glass in Hull railway station to articulate a tangle of poetic metaphors relating to transmigration hovering over the railway track. Thus, I see 'The Train Track and the Basket' as a work in progress that can be traced back to my conceptually based approaches to textiles. In this way the Hull Paragon Railway station becomes a dynamic setting and subject for the artwork whereby images of multiple photographs taken while walking systematically along train tracks are combined with the tools and skills of basket making to become a fibre into the cultural story of transmigration.

In developing this artwork thanks go to Hazel Colquhoun and Andrew Knight for introducing me to Hull; Trevor Mayne, the biodiversity officer for Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council for his insights into plants growing in the railway tracks in Yorkshire and Geraldine Santora, Curator of Collections, Statue of Liberty National Museums for giving me access to luggage baskets in their collection.