Rope Story
In which a late night visitor leads to adventures in socially-engaged art.
It’s late on a Friday evening and I am lying exhausted on the sofa. Rain is falling heavily outside the window. Dad is at his desk, working on his stamp collection.
The doorbell rings. I am off the sofa and away to the front door in an instant. It’s very unusual for us to have visitors unannounced. At the door is a friend of mine, Kimberley. She has a bicycle loaded with bags and is soaked to the skin. Hardly before we can speak, Dad has appeared behind me in the doorway. He seems terrified, and staggers back into the house. Since Dad has met Kimberley on a few occasions before, this is a bit puzzling, but perhaps he has not recognised her, or it is just the surprise of someone showing up late at night.
I usher Kimberley into the house and we unload her bike and put stuff out to dry on radiators. Then I set about making some food. Meanwhile, Dad has barricaded himself into his bedroom. Despite the lure of wine and extra biscuits, I cannot tempt him out to join us. Then the sofa is folded down for Kimberley and I see Dad into his own bed. He still wants his door closed, so I leave mine open so I can hear him if he needs help during the night.
The next day, Saturday, I suggest to Kimberley we head into Dundee, where an arts group have organised an event. I leave breakfast out for Dad, who still refuses to leave his room until Kimberley has gone. Then I leave a lunch for him in the fridge and set off to cycle with Kimberley into Dundee. Luckily the rain has stopped.
The event the artists have organised involves carrying a large length of rope through the streets of Dundee. We start off at a jute museum and then meander through the city, stopping at a few venues along the way.
The third stop is outside one of Dundee’s theatres. Here, we set the rope down and split up into pairs. One out of each pair is blindfolded and must be led by the other across the rather complicated front entrance grounds of the theatre. I am one who is blindfolded. It is something of a perilous trip. For genuinely blind people, I can imagine their guide dogs tendering their resignations. But with careful guidance, the journey is completed. Then we pick up the rope again and carry on our way.
After a few more stops, we arrive at last beside the River Tay. The tide is out and there are mud-flats stretching out from the shoreline. One of the artists, who is working on projects related to water, climbs down the stone steps to try to collect some of the river water in a test tube. When she steps off the last step, onto the mud, she immediately sinks to her knees. She is only a short woman, so there isn’t much left of her before things could get tricky. We are all immediately alert, and I think that perhaps the rope is about to find a very practical use! Luckily though, a sample of water is collected and the woman returns safely up the steps. The water in the test tube is filthy.
We settle again and at this point two children are approaching, heading for the nearby swimming pool. The leader of the artists’ group speaks to them. They tell him that they come from one of the housing estates in the suburbs of Dundee. They say that they feel safe coming into the centre of town together, but there are other parts of the city where they do not feel safe. It strikes me as remarkable that such frank answers to these questions should have been given to a strange group of people sitting with a coil of rope.
What was the rope walk really about, you may be wondering? Well, like many artworks, it leaves us open to bring our own interpretations, and sometimes these can add to or diverge from the original intent of the artist. Some might not like this prospect, but for others part of the gift of art is that it invites new ideas and new imaginings as it goes along. For what it is worth then, here’s my interpretation.
As perhaps you’ll be aware, Dundee was once famous for its manufacturing industry based around jute. So we started off in a jute museum, which had, in fact, once been a jute mill. The journey through the town was, if you like, the unravelling of the material economy of jute, back to its original source – the river that brought the boats in with the raw materials from Asia, and of course, also back to its original source in nature herself. On the way, whilst Dundee’s material economy unwinds, its cultural economy winds up. We stop off at university buildings, theatres, an arts centre and a science centre. And then our main stop, with the blindfolds. There is a side to our economies that remains hidden – and as such, we are blind to it – and this is care. All of our economies are supported by this, but it is, in turn, unacknowledged. We might even look at where we stopped for our blindfolded walk. Perhaps it tells us that the way to bring to society’s attention its reliance on care is through narrative – through stories. So the theatre, and the arts generally, are a potential source.
What made the whole of the event so memorable for me was that it was sandwiched between two examples of fear – my Dad’s fear of a stranger arriving late at night and the children’s fear about going into certain parts of the city. Both relate back to care. If you are a carer you will know that we can only do our best. An old person often has irrational fears that we might try to assuage, but might fail to completely calm. For children, perhaps there is more we can achieve. What better way for us to think about our towns and cities than to see them as places where children need to feel safe. And if we prepare them properly for life then they will grow in courage and strength into adulthood and then take on those responsibilities of care themselves.
Kimberley set off to visit other friends after the rope day and I went home to get Dad his dinner. After a few days more, he said to me one evening, ‘Kimberley’s really quite a nice girl, isn’t she?’
The rope story is an example of a ‘socially engaged’ artform. Typical of its genre, it sought to raise issues but not prescribe solutions. Those artists might say that, like much art, a playful exploration of its subject invites us to dance our own solutions. If we think carefully about the story it includes five different types of economy – the material, the cultural, the spatial (the place of Dundee), the natural and the emotional (through care). There were references to the circular nature of all economies and a little of how the economies keep going through gift – especially as explored through care – the emotional economy. Also, of course, a strong link to a particular place and to nature.
When we say the word ‘economy’ then, we need to spare a thought for what it is we are really talking about. Only once we take on a much broader view will we really get an economy that works for everyone and for nature.
In the meantime, all we can do is keep caring.
