Tuesday 3 November 2009

Seeing Red

There are some things in life that make your blood boil.

If you're interested in the healthy development of Old Market, the Love Easton exhibition upstairs at the Architecture Centre during November 2009 may well be one of those things.

The catalogue makes a fair stab at it with its presentation of the first of the project's 'Big Visions', Old Market Road (sic).

The double-page spread shows two photo-montages: one large, one small.

The larger one, presumably the bigger vision, depicts a bleak red-light district with a few shady characters left and right, one at a French style pissoir. The neon sign above his head promises Live Rude Girls on Stage Open 24 Hours. Red lights illuminate the windows of the Palace, while the business next door offers Girls, Girls, Girls, Live Exotic Show, Peep Show and Striptease. Further along we see Fun City and 64 Selections Video Peeps. All this is presented under the arc of a rainbow.

A quarter of the size, the other vision, entitled Injecting life, portrays the streets of Old Market thronging with people in a manifestation of 'let's all go to the same place at the same time' not seen since the anti-Iraq-war protests of February 2003. There seem to be markets stalls there, too, though it's not clear exactly what they are.

So whose visions are these?

The cryptic catalogue gives no clue. The exhibition seems to be keeping that to itself, too.

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