Cathy Rogers: Beauty Spot

I took a walk with Surinder along the High Street and he explained the demarcation zones between rail, canal and High Street and the different levels of ownership. We talked about how the area could be a beauty spot and could be used as a tourist attraction, if it could be seen as a whole, a united space.
Over 2 days a kiosk will appear in Smethwick High Street at the foot of the pedestrian walkway which crosses railway, road and canal. The kiosk will display postcards of imagined canalside vistas,taken from interviews with the people of Smethwick.
The work investigates the discrepancy between what exists in reality and how we perceive a place. At the heart of this work is the knowledge that the canals of the Black Country have left an indelible legacy to the area. How this legacy is presented and preserved now and in the future is integral to preserving its heritage. At the same time, the work incorporates the general public's present day needs and wishes.
The project plays with the medium of the postcard, which you normally pick up at sites of interest and tourist attractions. Over the course of the weekend the postcard kiosk will invite people to browse the collection and to swap their perceptions of the canal with those already created, contributing to the collection and participating in this ongoing creative consultation.

Cathy is an artist who works in the public realm to explore and challenge the perceptions of our familiar landscape. Cathy's aim is to discover the discrepancies between the visual and experienced memory of the environments we live in.

Text taken from Beyond the Cut event catalog April 2004

Photos:
1( top): Beauty Spot Booth constructed at the XRAY Factory
2:Photo composite - Cathy Rodgers
3: Photo composite - Cathy Rodgers
4: Cathy swapping postcards in exchange for views during the April event.