Laura Oldfield Ford - Grand Union

Laura spent six weeks in residence at Grand Union in Spring 2015. Having lived in Birmingham in early 1990s, she reconnected with the city through walks and research. This residency led to an exhibition in 2016.

Installation view of ‘Chthonic Reverb’ by Laura Oldfield Ford at Grand Union, Birmingham, 2016. Image by Stuart Whipps.

Imagining Digbeth as a threshold zone, smouldering under the threat of rampant property speculation, Laura’s work and interests speak to the ‘Working with the City’ strand of our programming and questions of gentrification and space that often emerge through Grand Union’s work.

Walking South East of Birmingham’s glossy new (in 2016) retail zone one encounters a dense maze of streets allocated for redevelopment. The HS2 masterplan radiating across 350 acres from Fazeley Street was and is set radically alter the area forever. The experience of walking through the skein of red brick warehouses, industrial units, canal bridges and scrapyards allows traces and fragments of memory to emerge as splinters in the ‘master plan.’

Urban regeneration schemes often possess a pioneering tone, the narrative suggesting that such areas are wastelands, that there is nothing of value there – Laura responded to this by channeling a sequence of counternarratives. The nature of liminal and contested territory allows for a porosity in the physical landscape – architecture becomes provisional and cracks open for a reordering of urban space.

Laura’s research in Digbeth started with a series of walks, shifting away from psychogeography to become more ‘sociogeographic’, drawing on multiple voices and narratives, not just her own subjective engagement with place. Utilising sound, photography, drawing, and painting Laura constructed a cognitive map through which memories and stories could be activated and told.

Image by Laura Oldfield Ford, taken during her 2015 residency at Grand Union, Birmingham.

Drawn to the countercultural history of Digbeth, in her research Laura gravitated towards the alternative scenes around the Rag Market and the Bullring, as well as the Irish community and the pubs around Digbeth Coach Station – considering which groups are currently occupying the area and how the nature of this occupation has shifted over recent decades. Nomadic and transient zones, hostels for migrant workers, provisional encampments and the coalescence of marginal political and religious groups emerged as particular points of interest.

At the end of her 2015 Residency, Laura wrote a text which you can read by clicking here (PDF version) →At the end of her 2015 Residency, Laura wrote a text which you can read by clicking here (Word doc. version) →

For her 2016 exhibition at Grand Union, Laura transformed the gallery space by creating billboards constructed from plywood and sitex (perforated steel), the types of materials used to board up abandoned buildings and disused factories. Through the process of building installations Laura was able to scrutinise the psychic effects of space and architecture generally, but also in specific relation to the locality of Digbeth. The materials used spoke to the precarious and provisional architecture of the liminal.

You can read more about the Exhibition and Laura’s residency through the ‘Whats On’ links below.