Keeping the Park is an audio tour for Wandle Park which explores how different individuals relate to, care for and think about the park. Bending and borrowing the conventional form of the tourist’s audio tour, Present Attempt created a bespoke experience in collaboration with local residents and park users. Following support from a Merton Arts Development Grant the tour is now available permanently in the Donald Hope Library and on Merton Council’s website as a download.
The project was originally commissioned for Away Day, a site specific art festival that took place in the borough of Merton in May 2010. Four months earlier on a frozen February morning, Present Attempt took their first steps around Wandle Park. After that initial encounter with the park we spent time walking in and around the green spaces of Colliers Wood, performing repeated visits to the park, whilst meeting with people living in the local area. All the way along these walks and talks we recorded conversations, stories, impressions and specific memories vested in these common grounds. With the resulting material we made this audio tour for Wandle Park – a unique snapshot of the park and its users in 2010.
The people who originally guided us around the parks and green spaces of Colliers Wood, during winter and spring 2010 are the voices you will hear on the audio tour. We would like to thank all the people who generously gave their time to take part in the creation of this piece. We would also like to thank POST Artists and the team at Merton Council for commissioning the project for Away Day, and the installation of the audio guide at Donald Hope Library.
On the May Bank Holiday weekend (29-31 May) we will be equipping the park users of Wandle Park, Colliers Wood with MP3 players and sending them on a walk round the park.
About the project.
Bending and borrowing the conventional form of the tourist’s audio guide, performance collective Present Attempt creates a bespoke 15-minute audio guide for Away Day. Generated from interviews and conversations with the local community and incorporating ephemeral performance acts and unsuspecting occurrences, the guide is made through the lens of the networks present in the park.
Part of the Away Day festival where over 20 artists present new works as POST returns to Merton in south London with Away Day. Engaging with suburban spaces of leisure, Away Day is a series of site-specific artworks for three public parks: Mostyn Gardens in Morden, Wandle Park in Colliers Wood and Ravensbury Park in Mitcham. Diverse interventions, performances and temporary artworks accost visitors with imagined alternative realities and new mappings of these spaces during weekends in May and June.
Find out more details and the programme here.