This summer here in Cornwall we have been plagued with so called 'art'
adorning the remains of our mining industry.
At Wheal Cock the concrete loadings of a horizontal winding engine have
been covered by a 16 foot concrete cube. The building of this has left
cement debris strewn over the area including the dumps which are SSSI.
The area is under consideration to become a scheduled ancient monument
and forms part of the area for the World Heritage Site Status bid for
Cornwall. Access to these important remains will be denied to industrial
archaeologists until the structure is removed next May. The organisers
of this particular work St Ives international a charitable trust reliant
on public funding, they could not be persuaded to move this structure a
short distance away despite English Heritage saying the location was
inappropriate. They have demonstrated a total lack of respect for the
landscape and mining remains so in future when they ask owners and
managers of mining heritage sites if they can they can place works of
art I hope they will be told to go away.
At Geevor mining museum there is an art and sculpture exhibition, large
parts of the site are littered with 'sculpture' good bad and terrible
and the new table plant building houses more works. That particular part
is not a huge problem as it does not form a part of the current visitor
trail having been emptied by the scrap man. It is a great shame that in
all other ways Geevor is looking better than ever this year.
I am not criticising art it is fine in it's place, what particularly
worries me here is that this exhibition took place at the invitation of
the organisation which manages this site. They seemed to think this
would boost visitor numbers (I don't think so) I am now very concerned
to read that one of the aims of the MINET project is 'Contributing to
development of European culture by involving local communities in
artistic ventures based on mining heritage and contacts with their
counterparts in other European countries.' If you have any input to
MINET I would be pleased to discuss this further with you off list if
you prefer.
Anyway if you manage a mining site think very carefully before allowing
anything on site which has nothing to do with mining and if it's St Ives
International just mention my name which they will understand means ****
off! If you need to generate funds can I suggest lap dancing but keep it
off to one side where it won't distract the mining historians.
--
Geoff Treseder
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