I first came across the work of Michael Landy while walking along Oxford Street
sometime in 2001. There, in a vacated C&A shop, Landry was having all his
worldly goods, including a car, destroyed and put in bin sacks. The work was
titled Break Down.
It was a wonderful and extraordinary idea. As John Lennon didn’t quite say, it’s not all that hard to imagine having no possessions, but it’s very hard indeed to imagine destroying the ones you’ve got. And even if some of us have thought about doing it, it takes a very brave man to actually do it.
Right now if you find yourself walking into the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester you’ll see a giant piece of wall art (it’s not exactly a mural) by Landy, that was part of an exhibition titled ‘Michael Landy’s Welcome to Essex.’
The piece, essentially a map collage, was apparently inspired by Essex walks that Landy did with people such as Gillian Darley, Elsa James and Pam Cox, who are respectively a writer, an artist and a sociologist.
It was the map of course that drew me in, but I keep thinking about that part that says ‘Welcome to England’s Most Misunderstood County’ – (also available as a postcard). I’d have thought that was Norfolk (as in ‘normal for Norfolk’). But then again as a Yorkshireman I’d say very few people ‘get’ Yorkshire. Or maybe that’s the nature of the beast – wherever you’re from, you think people don’t understand you.
One person who apparently does get Essex, is John Cooper Clark, who in my ignorance I always assumed still lived in Manchester. But it’s there in my copy of the free magazine Colchester and Manningtree Life, that he lives in, or close to, Colchester and is a great booster for the place. He says, ‘That’s the great thing about Colchester really. If you walk in any direction for twenty minutes, you’re actually in the countryside. Plus it’s not too far from Clacton, Walton and Winton on Sea, splendid staycation sites there. Almost within walking distance.’
Of course ‘almost within walking distance’ usually means notwithin walking distance. But it depends on who’s doing the walking.
JCC’s third album (on clear vinyl!) was titled Walking Back to Happiness.
