Field Study's Man in E11 reflects on the loss of local Utopian history repeating itself

Until today it was 5 years since I last did Graeme Miller’s ‘Linked’ walk. ‘Linked’ is an audio art installation situated alongside the route of the A12/M11 Link Road. The installation was created in 2003 and is frequently presented as a permanent public art work. Access to the audio element of ‘Linked’ requires the use of bespoke listening equipment. The equipment is, according to various sources, freely available to borrow from some local libraries, museums and the commissioning organisations, Arts Admin and Museum of London. 5 years ago (‘Linked’ then being 6 years old) I experienced some difficulties obtaining the listening equipment from the local libraries. Most of the library staff had no knowledge or awareness of the equipment or the art work, and they were, sometimes to my annoyance, quick to dismiss my enquiries as misguided. I did, eventually, manage to get a listening pack from Vestry House Museum after a protracted enquiry involving several members of staff of whom just one knew something about ‘Linked’.

‘Linked’ is an audio trail, consisting of musically/sonically treated oral testimonies, witness statements, so to speak, about the building of the A12/M11 Link Road and those others who were involved in the protests against it. I think ‘Linked’ is a remarkable creative and technical achievement and an amazing piece of cultural property. Perhaps this latter accolade is a bourgeois misappropriation of the art work however how ‘Linked’ occupies and operates in the public domain resists some cultural commoditisation. The listening equipment is lent on the basis of trust that the borrowers will indeed return it and so participate in a continual process of sharing. The transmitters, to which the listening devices are tuned, occupy essential public utilities on public rights of way. ‘Linked’ seemed to me to be a successful collaboration between what might usually be considered disparate entities – e.g. innovative artistic practice and local governmental administration or bureaucracy. The permanence of ‘Linked’ relies on a sense of care about the area and the people who live, and have lived, there.

The building of the M11 Link Road was a profoundly significant event in the social history of the area, and further afield, and so I was surprised and disappointed that getting access to the listening equipment via local libraries and museums was as difficult. ‘Linked’ was (and is) a highly inventive response to a topographical cleaving of communities.  I appreciate the difficulties of maintaining public facilities and services given the vicissitudes of public sector funding and shifts in social needs. What was so difficult about maintaining awareness about ‘Linked’? I enjoyed my experience of the audio walk but, to my discredit, I did not follow up or pursue the issue of what I regarded as the neglect of that public property. I complained briefly but only in a reactionary way about the irony of forgetting about an art work which seeks to maintain the memories and voices of people who were otherwise bulldozed away by the forces of ‘progress’. My complicity in the forgetting contributed to the relegation of the work to a status of novelty and gimmick. That was 2009/2010.

Recently, I attended a talk, ‘Remembering the M11’, hosted by the Wanstead Tap and John Rodgers, as part of the Wanstead Fringe Festival. Some of the discussion elicited strong feelings about how the protests against the building of the Link Road should be remembered. John Rodgers cited ‘Linked’ as one way people could get some insights into the remembrance of that historical event. I asked John if he had done the walk, or done the walk recently, for I wondered how he had fared in trying to get hold of the listening equipment and, in the 5 years since I had done the walk, how the transmitters were functioning. John replied he had not done the walk and, if I recall correctly, he would set out the next day to do the walk. I advised him he might experience some problems getting hold of the listening gear locally, if my experiences were still something to go by. I’m a frequent visitor to ‘the lost byway’, John Rodger’s web site, which features prominently John’s book, ‘This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City’. It seemed to me that ‘Linked’ could be an apt subject for his exploratory gaze, but as yet he has not reported on ‘Linked’.

This month I decided to have another go at the ‘Linked’ walk. Leytonstone Library told me they do not have the listening gear and had not done so for many years. Leyton Library responded similarly and added that they doubted the project was still working. They tried and failed to contact Vestry House Museum. I went to Arts Admin at Toynbee Studios (Commercial St) and got a listening pack from them. The receptionist was very helpful and we had a discussion about how ‘Linked’ still functions as an art work 11 years on. I did the walk today (18^th October). I managed to find 13 of the 20 transmitters/transmissions along the whole of the route. For all it matters I enjoyed the auditory experience much more this time around, perhaps because I used my own, more contemporary, earphones with the receiver; thus getting a more powerful auditory experience. I started at Queen Elizabeth Park and finished in Wanstead. I stopped by Wanstead Library to ask if they had the listening equipment. They didn’t. In fact, I was told, ‘Linked’ isn’t working anymore and they had not kept listening packs for at least 6 years. I did not correct the librarian however I was surprised at how brusque he was. I decided against asking him to contact Redbridge Museum. I headed for Vestry House Museum.

Vestry House Museum was more helpful however I think some of the staff’s helpfulness was a response to my conviction that ‘Linked’ does indeed exist. I had to explain to the receptionist about the ‘Linked’ equipment. She did not know about it. I was passed on, via telephone, to the archivist. He did not know about ‘Linked’. I came close to revealing the very existence of the art work but managed to restrain myself for the sake of this investigation of how this local history is being curated. I was asked, by the archivist, to ask the receptionist to ask another member of staff to look into it. That member of staff arrived and did not know about the work, or if they had the listening equipment. She apologised that she had only recently started work there at the museum. She contacted her boss (by phone) and was informed that they did have some ‘Linked’ listening packs in a draw by the photocopier in reception. The said draws were rifled through but we did not find any listening packs. I had made an appointment (for next week) to see what the VHM local history archive has about the M11 Link Road protests and so I retreated asking if they might be able to sort something out for that visit.

It wasn’t my intention to try and embarrass the VHM staff. I did show them the printed guide to ‘Linked’ – which dates back to 2003 and the then initial launch of the work. Perhaps, as the receptionist suggested, the borough authorities of Redbridge and Waltham Forest did not actually make an open ended/permanent commitment to the care and provision of the listening packs – and that such a commitment would be beyond their capability or conditional on some form of ‘endowment’. I reflected on various local cultural/arts strategies carried out recently in/by the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The strategies include attracting artists/art of international standing to the borough. I wonder if it is fair to say that one particular art work of international standing all ready in place in the borough is being neglected.  This was, bizarrely, a loss of local Utopian history repeating itself.