urban projects: house that jack built 2002

golden thread gallery,belfast
curated by gail prentice

Urban projects consists of a series of work derived from interviews with people from Ardoyne and the Bone.

The work is concerned with how people describe their locality and use local knowledge to navigate the urban environment.

A catalogue of the interviews was published to co incide with the exhibition

With thanks to Christine, Connor and Stevie.

HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT Stevie
''There was an old man lived in this house about 20 / 30 years ago and he built the extension. As you can see they're where the sink cupboards are, but he didn't use proper measuring tools.

The next door neighbour told me he was coming in and saying ''how far is your switches away from the water taps?''. So he was like walking in to there (pointing) and measuring from the water tap to the plugs with his hands and the walking down like that (holding measurement) and the coming back up like that (still holding measurement) and the putting his hand there, marking the first switch.

So he used no proper dimensions. He has all the water heaters up beside the water taps, which is illegal. As soon as you switch it on there's a chance of you being electrocuted. He didn't put a damp proof course in. He thought you just built it with brick and then plastered it over. So it's literally ' The House That Jack built'.

It as a wee man, god bless him, tried his best, but he made a terrible mess out of it. So he was walking down ''and how low is your cupboards from your ceiling?'', and then marking a line out on the wall where the top of the cupboards should be. …

Without any measuring, tape measures, tape rules, even a piece of string he could have used, but no. So by the time he walked down the garden and back up the cupboard tops and things had probably changed about 12 inches ''. Stevie

Mixed Media sculpture mounted on wall 10'.4' / 300cm. 120cm