The ice-cream factory

On Thursday 14th May Naomi and David met us (Anna and Elizabeth) at the 'ice cream factory' that stands in the back garden of Anna's rented first floor flat in Whalley Range. Unfortunately, the majority of the building's roof and interior was lost to a fire, started deliberately, the weekend before we met. We took a walk around it and kept in mind a number of questions Elizabeth devised, to get participants thinking about the space.

It started to rain and we came up to Anna's flat for tea and biscuits, Jess arrived shortly afterwards and Anna explained how the building had become lodged in her imagination and gave a short 'potted history' (information courtesy of Anna's next door neighbour and local history enthusiast, Mr Lloyd!):

In 1909 when the shops were built, it did not exist but a wooden shed stood in its place. The shop at the front belonged to James Beardmore, a confectioner, and ice was brought into the back yard from Manchester and smashed up on the shed floor, for making ice cream in metal double walled containers.



- In the 1930s the shop became 'Fenton's Confectioners' and around 1950 they built the 'ice cream factory' (as it was so called, according to Mr Lloyd). Refrigeration equipment was introduced. The ice cream had a good reputation and Fenton's supplied it to dances, balls and banquets at Longford Hall (in Longford Park, Stretford. It was built originally as a home for the Manchester Industrialist John Rylands).

- In the late 1950s it was hired by Jackson's the Printers and used for printing pamphlets etc.

- After this it was used by John Hoffman, principal piano tuner to the Halle Orchestra at the time, for the storage of pianos.

- It was used briefly for furniture restoration.

- It has been slept in by rough sleepers.

- It has been set on fire by young people in the neighbourhood. Its skeleton remains.



We explained we wanted to facilitate a discussion about the place, and see if people were interested in doing something creative with it long-term (this was the original plan, rained on a bit by the recent fire!). We rolled out a large piece of paper with some images and text in a spider diagram - contextualising the building in the row of shops, names of writers, artists, schools of thought that had come to our minds as possibly relevant.

The group added bits to the diagram through discussion.

What really interested me (Anna) was the way we came around to talking about different approaches to the subject matter. I would summarise it like this (feel free to disagree/debate!):

- Anna and Elizabeth had started from a historical and theoretical place (how can we story its past life/multiple uses in the present? the building as a kind of palimpsest).
- Naomi talked about how she would approach it from a sensory perspective (eg. ideas around making ice cream, participants creating meaning about the place through taste)
- David talked about approaching the place through action (eg. a playful engagement with its materials and see what emerges, importance of not having a particular end-point at the start)
- Jess talked about her approach to working with people through her current project setting up a community cafe on the Merseybank Estate nearby and how this related to her fine art practice. Jess also talked about the idea of making ice-cream and using the street in front of the shops to distribute it as a way of engaging with people locally, possibly doing it in a way which referenced the history of the building eg. engage with a museum to find out old recipes, methods, use of equipment... etc.



Mr Lloyd came round for the last 45 minutes for a chat about the history of the shops and the ice-cream factory, and he brought with him old photographs and postcards.

There were a number of suggestions about other artists' work we could look into:
- William Titley:
http://www.williamtitley.org/myplace.html

- Sheffield based artists ‘Encounters’ and their participatory artwork taking over a disused shop: http://www.sharrowencounters.org.uk/shops.htm



- Suzanne Lacy’s ???

- Jennie Savage’s Arcades Project and ‘Museum of the Moment’:
http://www.arcadesproject.org/?cat=3
- Minerva Cuevas ‘The Street’ project www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/minerva-cuevas and ‘Fleet: Ice Cream Orchestra www.myspace.com/icecreamorchestra

And about things we could do:
- oral history playing out of an ice-cream van
- ‘re-make’ the ice-cream
- lending library which used to run from the post office

And about people/organizations we could engage with:
- Chorlton History Group
- Mr Lloyd as ongoing consultant
- Friends of Longford Park (Jess was talking about Rose Queen tradition that Merseybank residents brought from Ancoats. Anna was talking about annual Rose Queen festival that takes place in Longford Park, every year since 1909)



We all agreed at the end we should record conversations in future because it is tricky to remember everything that was said afterwards.

Afterwards David and I went to an artists’ talk at Castlefield Gallery, which felt like it related to things we had spoken about in the afternoon, in terms of research methods/how to approach a subject and carry forward the seed of ad idea. Hey, Jess, somebody talked about your Merseybank project there too!:

More on: Ackroyd & Harvey’s work intersects sculpture, photography, biology and ecology, resulting in time based acts that reveal an intrinsic bias towards process and event. They have exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally, in found spaces of architectural interest and established galleries and museums.
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/artists/ah

More on: James Mariott is an historian, naturalist, activist, and artist. He is a founding member and co-director of Platform, a 22-year-old award-winning organisation based in London. Platform works across disciplines for social and ecological justice. It combines the transformatory power of art with the tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with the vision to promote alternative futures.
http://www.platformlondon.org

In light if this, and going to Naomi’s film screening at Islington Mill the other day I have been thinking about the ice cream factory in terms of a more participative art practice… Anyway I’m sure there’ll be a chance to chat about that next time.

Would anybody like to nominate themselves (a couple of people) to facilitate something (more practice based?) for next time (start of July?). How do other people want to continue?