Most of Saturday was about Ben Dalton’s charity shop challenge. I teamed up with Gina to scourge the second hand market to explore the digital outside/r. We had £10 to blow on any of the vast selection of charity shops + and army surplus store. Maybe not the charity shop capital of Britain (trigger warning: Daily Mail link) Barrow-In-Furness could possibly be a close runner up.
It was nice to have an activity to focus on whilst going round town with Gina. I’ve not met her previously, and her bodies of work is so interesting, it was a really nice chance to get to have a prolonged conversation during the challenge.
I’m not sure it really matters what we bought (ab flab buster and a walking stick), I think the conversations we had around what to do would have been along the same lines. Talked about notions of dis/ability and how the public see or not see depending on what you look like or use. The presentation took the form of a conversation between two seemingly disabled people strolling through the park.
That’s another element of DML I’m starting to appreciate – time to think, make, experiment together. Not sure what other residencies are like, but the communal meals and activities make me feel like I’m at summer camp with booze.
