HAUNTED BY APPLES
Film and Installation, 1520 Studios MCR, Spring 2021
Pomona Gardens
Hulme
Manchester
Persons visiting Manchester will find these:
Gardens and pleasure grounds
Very extensively laid out in the Continental style, with a frontage on the banks of the River Irwell of nearly a mile; only fifteen minutes walk from the Exchange,
and being situated on the Western side of the City.
The air is remarkably pure, (vide Dalton) equal to any part of Britain.
A number of Pleasure Boats, and accommodation for other Athletic and Manly Exercises.
Extensive Views of Important Places are erected every season,
for Pyrotechnical Exhibitions and Illuminations.
Equal in Splendour to Vauxhall Gardens London.
There is also
A Bowling Green; Quoiting Grounds; a Shooting Gallery
Parties are in attendance to see that no improper characters are admitted.
Pomona Island. Pomona Strand.
Pomona, goddess of abundance.
Fieldwork
Against a backdrop of cranes, a deconstructed domestic scene:
Refrigerator, ironing board and a beige leatherette three-piece suite.
Pomona, former Pleasure Gardens, (mid 1800’s) and later a docklands, now a derelict space on the brink of redevelopment close to the boundary of Manchester and Salford.
Waterside apartments are at various stages of completion.
Hoardings surrounding the construction site display large stock images of imagined future occupants.
Young, professional. Four female, one male, all white. Stand ins. Ad-mat.
Fieldwork Encounter
Walking beneath the concrete pillars that support the metro line above, I notice a tall, thin figure standing motionless amidst the bushes, naked from the waist up. I say ‘Hi’ and he silently acknowledges me with a slight movement of his head. I walk on, passing the neatly made bed on a cardboard base. A rough sleeper, one of many who shelter here, he does not fit the aspirational profile suggested on the hoardings
Opened in 1845, the Pomona Pleasure Gardens offered fresh air and leisure activities for local people as a brief refuge from lives of hard manual labour. Escapism and distractions took the form of firework displays, concerts, a large hedge maze, boat trips and time travel to ancient Rome to witness a chariot race.
A place to think differently.
In 1887 there was a huge explosion in the Roberts and Dale chemical pigment factory close by the Gardens. Tragically, lives were lost and the factory destroyed. This disaster-level accidental action painting signalled the closure of the Pleasure Gardens.
In the 1970’s, the pleasure, leisure banners were flying again on Pomona Island. While diners indulged aboard a floating bar and restaurant, former ferry boat the Westward Ho, revellers danced in the booming carcass of a grounded Dehavilland Comet aircraft discotheque.
Long Life. Britvic. Flares. Tank top star and platforms.
You’re Always Welcome Aboard.
Fieldwork
Walking the site. Quiet, open, an occasional jogger, a dog walker, distant sounds of construction. Deserted and home to wildlife, surrounded by roads, train line, canals and metrolink. Underfoot, a considerable amount of detritus.
Discarded artefacts everywhere. Casual litter drops. Fly tipping.
The Pomona Pleasure Palace exhibited artworks from around the world, objects and curios pillaged in the colonial delirium of collection and taxonomy.
With the site now in a state of flux, Pomona suggests an art gallery.
Design, colours and materiality, the unlikely juxtapositions of mass production and disposal, fragments of text and degrees of deterioration.
Disposable fork. Vehicle number plate. Sunglasses. Toothpaste tube.
Sanitary pad. Dog treat packet. Spiderman. Hand written note.
Household and industrial items, intimate, functional, metal, plastic, telegenic.
The production-line descendants of those once fetishised by the pop art movement, defined by Richard Hamilton as: “popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business”
These objects are At once familiar and mysterious, banal and exotic.
R.Mutt was here.
Ripped, rusted and torn. Once beautiful.
How could you throw this away?
The Goddess Pomona continues to provide abundance.
Artifact
A glove, red and grey fabric.
Skytec Ninja Flex
EN388. 3131
Palimpsest
Most surface areas on Pomona are covered with hieroglyphs and graffiti.
Mark making, wall art, coded inscriptions. Some are elaborate and well rendered, others, scattergun territorial scent markings.
Layers of messages and symbols. A tidal flow of spray paint.
Addition and decay, mischief and screaming.
I notice the letters DEMON on a railway bridge in the distance. Closer, on a metal railing, the statement: DO CRIME.
Artifact
Spray paint canister
Holts Auto Spray Paint
Original Equipment Paint
Superior Colour Match
Fieldwork, walking the site
A marker pen poem on a broken white board has appeared.
Fragment
Stolen or sacrificed
Like these traces of land
Priceless yet overpriced and
Subject to the grasping maws
The developers add their text
X1 Manchester Waters is the first phase for the transformational Pomona Island development, delivering 742 homes for private market rent across five residential towers. It is the 20th X1 scheme to be delivered in Manchester.
The location is truly unique and will offer residents stunning waterfront views along with excellent travel links to Greater Manchester – with the Pomona Island tram stop located just two minutes walk from the development.
The explosion marked the closure of Pomona Gardens, leaving the Goddess to roam the site amidst her abandoned orchard.
The gathered artefacts have been photographed and exhibited filmed, edited, and projected.
The ad-mat figures on the construction site hoardings now have been modified with spray paint faces and animal ears.