IUD have been doing fieldwork in Salford around areas where people have been evicted and properties are being prepared for demolition. We have explored the streets and spaces before, during and after the demolitions have taken place. Recently we have been inspired by a chance find: collections of building materials such as brick, stone, concrete and ceramics. These collections seem to represent a carefully assembled inventory of the geology that makes up the now demolished or decaying homes.
We don’t know who is responsible for these collections yet, maybe we never will but their painstaking work has inspired us to attempt our own inventory of building materials. Putting this into practice has given us insight into the careful selection of samples, their scale, colours, markings etc and maybe the thought process that has informed the production of this archive. It seems to us that this unknown archaeologist has used these limited resources to show us the value of the material culture of dispossession.
Observed Decay: Telling Stories with Mutable Things by Caitlin DeSilvey, in Journal of Material Culture, Vol 11 2006.
The Archaeology of Alienation: A Late 20th. Century British Council Flat by Victor Buchli & Gavin Lucas, in Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, published by Routledge 2001.