pavements

just a quick photo heavy note to say my latest project is very much underway!

very vaguely… i’ve been plotting significant events in my life onto OS maps of places i’ve lived. i then created a huge transparent super-super-super-scale map of London from 2 pages of a vintage 1990 (year of my birth) AZ map, which featured the River Thames by name (with connotations of temporality, memory, Roni Horn‘s ‘Another Water’ inspired, etc.), and superimposed it onto the OS maps… and this is said London map taped to my window:

(close-up)

so it was my first day out in London today, chalking the significant events in my life onto the pavements of London and being photographed by Hannah Daisy. among other interesting experiences today, i was stopped by the police when chalking my very first pavement slab. the event looked like this:

and went a bit like this:

mr police: “KATE MOSS”
me: ignorant
mr police: “KATE MOSS!”
me: looks around for Kate Moss
mr police: beckons with one hand and an authorative glare
me: “it’s only chalk!”
mr police: “i’m not going to arrest you – what are you doing?”
me: “writing my autobiography onto pavements in London – i’m an arts student!”
mr police: “is it an interesting autobiography?”
me: “i don’t know, i guess, i think it’s interesting”
Hannah Daisy: takes photographs of everything
mr police: “you really shouldn’t chalk pavements in Whitehall”
me: shrugs shoulders and looks as submissive as possible “ok, thank you”
horse: i’m so humiliated by this entire scenario – i’m much too beautiful to be dealing with the concerns of this petty megalomaniac sitting on my back
me: walks around corner to continue chalking on Whitehall pavements
Hannah Daisy: amazing

a lot of people got interested very quickly, including this lovely family in Whitehall:

and for my final pavement today, i was baptised outside Starbucks on Victoria Street, much to the confusion of hoi polloi and baristas:

some more photographs taken by the ever talented (and patient – and generous!) Hannah Daisy:

(chalking about the death of my granny outside a funeral home near Pimlico)…

(discovering beautiful squares and chalking outside a tiny art gallery somewhere near Westminster)…

(a couple of pavements)…

funny how much London pavements look like graves with a little chalk and a flower…

a funny lady in Pimlico commented that the “poor man” who returned his Boris bike would be terrified somebody had died where his bike lived:

so we are venturing out again to Victoria and Green Park tomorrow. and as i said in my last post, the book of this project will be for sale at the Small Publishers Fair on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th November at Conway Hall (near Holborn), where i will be reading on Saturday at midday along with all the lovely people from the MA in Poetic Practice… more updates soon!