Northampton Re-Creational Gardens
Purveyors of Northampton Pleasure
Purveyors of Northampton Pleasure
The ‘Northampton Re-creational Gardens’ is a proposal for a temporary event designed as a platform for the radical re-creation of Northampton Town.
Northampton was once a thriving industrial town internationally renown for the manufacturing of quality boot and shoes . However the advent of mass production and the prospect of cheaper imports the market for quality handmade shoes has rapidly declined. With the waning of industry the town has fallen into a state of steady disrepair and the nature of its public spaces is now characterised by a dull, hyper-regulated, blandness. (see Northampton Photographic essay)
Northampton Re-Creational Gardens draws on extensive historical and theoretical research of ‘Architectures of Play’, to propose a series of tactics that aim to transform the nature of existing public space into grounds for re-creation and provocative play
The concept for the gardens is inspired by the film ‘ Kinky Boots’ which satirises the overt machismo and patriarchal legacy of the failed shoe industry and its potential re-generation at the hands of a Drag queen called Lola. Drag became a method of critical and creative re-appraisal that promises to return a level of agency to Northamptonians and propagate public space in which to authentically
re-create/recreate..
Northampton was once a thriving industrial town internationally renown for the manufacturing of quality boot and shoes . However the advent of mass production and the prospect of cheaper imports the market for quality handmade shoes has rapidly declined. With the waning of industry the town has fallen into a state of steady disrepair and the nature of its public spaces is now characterised by a dull, hyper-regulated, blandness. (see Northampton Photographic essay)
Northampton Re-Creational Gardens draws on extensive historical and theoretical research of ‘Architectures of Play’, to propose a series of tactics that aim to transform the nature of existing public space into grounds for re-creation and provocative play
The concept for the gardens is inspired by the film ‘ Kinky Boots’ which satirises the overt machismo and patriarchal legacy of the failed shoe industry and its potential re-generation at the hands of a Drag queen called Lola. Drag became a method of critical and creative re-appraisal that promises to return a level of agency to Northamptonians and propagate public space in which to authentically
re-create/recreate..
Observation Apron
Derelict and unused spaces are transformed into satellite extensions of the Re-creational garden event.
Changing rooms and minature stages begin to emerge around the town.
The simple strategy of isolating the object by painting it red and recreating it through bricolage enables local communities to critically and creatively re-create their public spaces.
Derelict and unused spaces are transformed into satellite extensions of the Re-creational garden event.
Changing rooms and minature stages begin to emerge around the town.
The simple strategy of isolating the object by painting it red and recreating it through bricolage enables local communities to critically and creatively re-create their public spaces.
'Kinky Parnassus'
Monument to the Mythology of the 'Kinky Boots' film
Bricolage of appropriated/found objects in the town recreating important scenes from the 'Kinky Boots' film.
Old Motorcycle parts left on the Racecourse green form the cabaret club stage lighting, caravans form backstage dressing rooms and an old Carlsberg trailer forms the main space for the aftershow cafe.
Monument to the Mythology of the 'Kinky Boots' film
Bricolage of appropriated/found objects in the town recreating important scenes from the 'Kinky Boots' film.
Old Motorcycle parts left on the Racecourse green form the cabaret club stage lighting, caravans form backstage dressing rooms and an old Carlsberg trailer forms the main space for the aftershow cafe.
'Changing Rooms'
