photograph courtesy of Graham Dunning

I’m loving turning up to the site each week to find up what Graham’s getting been up to, from turning up to find him playing the pan found in the shed with bows, to recording the sounds whilst digging, there is always something interesting taking place.

On the day of the St. Patrick’s Parade this year, a man turned up at the site who had lived on Milk Street (the road parallel to Floodgate Street) as a child. He told me stories of the site during the war when he lived locally. One thing he mentioned was the site had been the home to a rag and bone man who was named Bubba by local children and his horse – whose name he had forgotten.

So today was really exciting, whilst digging some more, about 18 inches into the ground, Graham came across what appears to be part of a horses harness which presumably belonged to the aforementioned horse.

If anyone knows any more about the rag and bone man and his horse, or any other histories of the site we would love to hear them.

photograph by Graham Dunning

We were unaware of the site’s connection with the music industry until Hannah Hull researched the history of the plot back to the 1950′s when the warehouse was built. Then whilst digging for foundations she came across broken shards of shellac. These were confirmed as pieces of broken 10″ records by current artist in residence Graham Dunning. Over the last few weeks, Graham has been excavating the site in search for more areas of buried shellac. Last week Graham took samples back to Manachester and in his studio began to capture sounds from the records with a stylus,  it’s a really exciting start to the residency. Graham has created a new blog in addition to his usual one for the residency, which has a sample of the sounds recorded.

To hear the sample and to follow his progress go to http://grahamdunningreagarden.wordpress.com/

Only a few days until Claudia Borgna’s first public showing of her work created at The Rea Garden. To keep us warm on Friday evening there will be a small bonfire, mulled cider, hot chocolate rum and not forgetting our trusted wood burner.

Friday 6pm – 9pm, all welcome.

The Rea Garden is also open Friday 12th , Sat 13th and Sunday 14th 11am – 4pm for Claudia’s interim show.

treasure in the brambles, originally uploaded by the rea garden.

Helen finds some long lost treasure in the bramble patch in the garden

sugar for ants, originally uploaded by the rea garden.

Here Helen surrounds the nest with piles of granulated sugar which the ants seem to like

cherries for ants, originally uploaded by the rea garden.

Feeding ants cherries. Here Helen is attempting to make friends with a nest of ants next to the shed.

photosynthesis experiments, originally uploaded by the rea garden.

Experiments with photosynthesis, an attempt to see if the leaves of plants can be changed by depriving them of sunlight