So When I approached the local government about taking on a large commercial space, this particular near derelict was one of the few that were offered , they couldn't believe their luck when I said ...yes I will take it !!!
a 20 mile walk to my little gallery distribution point down on the coast , and only a 10 mile walk to my parents, and only a 5 mile walk to Plymouth city centre with the means to be able to access the transport network to the rest of the country and further a field, but most importantly it was right on the edge of Dartmoor National Park !! so for me ...it was a perfect blank canvas to be able to set up a little arty hub
so we dicided to commit to it ... having handed over a great big envelope full of cash , that was immediately snatched from view by the local council , I took it upon myself to make a few adjustments,and make it ready for its intended purpose ...
so in between the logistics of moving an reasonable proportion of personal effects, building walls and working on the continually developing portfolio of art and design concepts, I even managed to maintain a few little outside commitments,projects,collaborations and exhibitions ....
after you design the thing, build the thing ....you have to paint the thing decorate it , curate it , promote it, and in order to maintain public appeal .....consistently diversify the thing ( from the previous gallery experiences I managed extensive experience of the latter )
the project was initially opened as a means of field testing the design paradigms for my own eco architectural masterpiece ' The Green Star House ' the optimum spatial allocation for human habitation !
but through circuitous circumstance I was able to take on some collaborative palaeontology projects with some local and national institutions, museums and education faculties
some of our ' bohemian ' style after hours parties / gatherings and shenanigans were certainly worthy of a few photos at the time ..... but alas as with so many of the ongoing tumults ... I am normally far to busy doing the thing .... to be standing around documenting the thing ! as we all should be really !!
and I should really give thanks at this stage for all those wonderful part time helpers / volunteers / hippies / friends/ beatniks/ collaborators and acquaintances that sometimes manage to catch me on camera during a quiet moment ....otherwise there really would be no record of me or my activities on this horrible soulless digitized life sucking machinery that you all seem to put so much clout and faith into ( what an age to be alive ) It still makes me smile when I approach a ' new gallery ' and introduce myself ....and the point of contact says ' who are you ' .... and these days I can quite happily say ' the fact that you don't know says more about your awareness ...or lack thereof , than my muted self effacing and still state censored activities '
these are I think the last photos I had taken of the space and this was just prior to hosting a week long arts and design festival.....unfortunately pretty much as soon as I finished the complete instillation , we started having some problems with the local authority. of course this was when the ' Coalition ' Government had begun to take effect and the whole of the countries admistration seemed to turn into a pit of completely self serving backstabbing , yet hugely inept and possibly retarded snakes
it took a great deal of effort to complete the project and I have written a little more about this ordeal in my recent book ( available through stockists of original Artby Valerio ) but suffice to say that the final design was a magnificent piece of artistic display / interactive sculpture experience / Design creation and implementation and indeed political and social hub, and that is before any of the self engineered and tested eco and offgrid initiatives that I was able to finalise ( which was a running and functioning prototype of the now much discussed 'earthship' style project )... of course that was before such things were becoming common knowledge ...I do still reference the entire project with a huge sense of pride as not only was the entire enterprise self realized and funded .... but the epic legal battle it took to just maintain any sense of trade under the draconian and absurd actions of our local authority at the time
fortunately in spite of all advise to the contrary , the demented scale of authoritarian intimidations and a few little personal hiccups ( temperamental females and chinchilla mortality ) not only was the project completed ...the arts festival held ! but the self representing legal defence against these sinister clowns was colossal and certainly an experience and a fight worth having!, these days when I get the chance to actually reflect on this stuff, it is of course a little bitter sweet .... what might have been of the Valerio Institute had it not been for these hideous failures and corruptions of a completely farcical local and central government ... could have been something even more remarkable than it was. if I could have just been allowed to get on with the work peaceably I could still be using Plymouth as a little base of operations, and in turn Plymouth would have had one less empty and near derelict building ..... but of course there is the hindsight knowledge that had I taken the judges bait ... had I agreed to continue as a tenant for these people ... then I am sure that given the state of decay in every facet of our so called contemporary governance ... then I certainly would have been unable to commit to some of the occurrences that have happened in the wake of this situation .... and without a doubt and just a little smile I can be sure there are no regrets x
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