Once upon a time in Somerset…
Charles’ talk was mainly about the idea of Interrupting Places, a practice he began in 1977. He went to a beach in Somerset and set up a line of little wooden sculptures, all connected by string. He watched people try to work out what they meant and rather liked that. After its first siting on the beach, the sculptures were then moved, first down the middle of a dual carriageway and later to a patch of land in a slightly dodgy bit of Leeds. The sculptures changed each time they were moved, so that they would respond to and interrupt the environment that they sat in, and cause people to ask questions of them.
He’s now been interrupting places for nearly 40 years, using many of the same approaches as he used in his first sandy foray: interrupting, changing work to suit its setting, playing with temporary, and often doing things without asking… I can also add that he’s very nice and rather tall, just so you’ve got a good picture.
Now that your Charles Quick 101 is done with, I’ll sum up what I reckon are the three key ideas that he talked about that really got me thinking: