ARTISTS TALKING

Her projects operate over a minimum of two years, and the involvement of the surrounding community, in all aspects, is key. Articulating her work, she says: “The projects are not remote or isolated, they require many years to develop. They always involve others, and give a sense of belonging and ownership; as a result, authorship tends to become blurred.”

Currently she is working on ways of marking and symbolically renewing the tidal pool that gave Liverpool its name. For her, the Pool Project is about a sense of place. “As an ecological artist, it’s about complexity, the wholeness of that place ' people, plants, the social systems, geography, archaeology, and myth.”

The tidal pool used to be a major geographical landmark, a significant inlet of the Mersey, running from the Albert Dock up Canning Street, and heading north to finish at what is now the Queensway tunnel entrance. It encouraged the development of Liverpool as a commercial harbour, and although this area is now prime real estate, the tide still ebbs and flows below ground. “The peninsula and tidal area has remained a walkable space with a specific character. The geography affects transport decisions and needs to also inform the aesthetic of the space, as well as recreational and tourist uses,” says Grant. “I work towards long term projects that will enable creative ideas to develop and embed themselves flexibly in a city’s routines.”

Her current research funded by Arts Council England, North West is in collaboration with landscape architects Camlin Lonsdale, and explores how public artworks, dialogue and ongoing multi–sensory activity can work to bring this hidden pool into public consciousness.

On 19 September, the third People Powered Boat Flotilla will take place ' a “wacky races” of DIY vehicles that run along the original route of the tidal inlet. Other collaborative projects in development include citizens of the city from the city council archaeology department, taxi drivers, geomancers and people on the street, and will involve pub workshops, sound sculpture, public lighting plans and a celebratory naming of the tidal pool.

“I tap into what people want when they allow themselves to dream. I am concerned with the survival of the collective self.” This allows Grant a sense of creative poetry while still managing to work through the worlds of arts funding and statutory decision making. Her practice is embedded within the physicality of the city, with an emphasis on pockets of abandoned spaces, historical meanings and unheard people. Intertwined is an attempt to bring the subtext to the surface, an honouring of the past to influence the present, a melding of the old with the current. Her projects work variously with the aims of introducing new city walks; reclaiming derelict space; making functional and more vibrant the grey areas that make for grey life and grey people; drawing attention to and combating post–industrial pollution.

This highlighting of lost and hidden spaces easily translates into a metaphor for the reclamation of lost and hidden people. As she says about the Pool Project: “To be a person or a stream without a proper name is to be invisible.”

Jean Grant is an artist working nationally and internationally.
She can be contacted via her website www.site-sight.demon.co.uk

The Third Liverpool People Powered Boat Flotilla takes place as an event on 19 September during Liverpool Biennial.
All peopled powered boats are welcome to join in as long as they fill out an entry form by 10 September. For further information mgtamoha@livjm.ac.uk