Returns residency Day 6 - Hanley Walk with Maps

For 1 week, a group of artists ( Christine Stevens, Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee and Danica Maier) formerly working on a previous project in the city (Topographies of the Obsolete, 2013) based at the Spode factory site - have returned to Stoke to pick up some pieces ahead of a short exhibition with us in Autumn 2018. 

Having completed making the big pot Christine and I moved on to the business of packaging and storage in advance of it being collected for firing. We assembled the components with which to build a crate around it and found a temporary spot to store it in.

I then went on a walk around Hanley to follow up on previous exploration, using the Godfrey 1877 and 1898 Ordnance Survey maps as guides and imaginative prompts. I followed the routes of old tram and railway lines and investigated the wasteland that now occupies the area of former terraced streets west of York Street. This is the preliminary stage of the composition of a soundwalk that I intend to compose for the Returns exhibition at Airspace in late November/early December.

- Andrew Brown