david harris DALE noreg remote place(s) childhood space(s) spring 2016
50.844911, -0.235711 Hide-and-seek memories from when I was ten like sifting through somebody else’s hide-and-seek memories dark cold rooms at twilight doors slamming in the wind sharp dark cupboards of coats lego
in
the sunshine on the carpet Upstairs
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two-tone chimes in the Hallway signal strangers behind the frosted glass
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Plan Inside Outside Out Home: end-of-row semi-detatched, red-brick house 1. garden warm shorn prickly green underfoot wraps around half the house, darkened by scratchy no-fun firs. The flat-top firs hide the unreachable red-brick garden wall and the tin-can relics of strangers Out 2. brick-walled garden path long straight race runs alongside house and garden, bare-foot passed the roses and the ever-flowing drain and its familiar clank 3. The Backyard 4. The Rockery 5. tomatoes and sour grapes 6. buried treasure in sticky black earth 7. The Garage 8. Behind The Garage a wedge of unseen space reserved for leaning broken windows in the concrete and hard mud. Out of bounds. 9. Inside 10. Outside 11. Out
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Plan Inside Downstairs 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
The Hallway pink bath and hollow black swan The Lounge The Yellow Chair The Downstairs Bathroom The Kitchen The Other Room
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Plan Inside Upstairs 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
bedroom The Landing bedroom The Upstairs Bathroom / The Shower Room bedroom The Front Bedroom
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Section Upstairs and Downstairs north to south 0. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Outside frosted window to The Lounge dad-dead cupboard The Hatch The Back Yard
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Section Downstairs and Upstairs north to south 0. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Outside frosted window to The Lounge dead-dad cupboard The Hatch The Back Yard
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Plan Inside Downstairs 1. dad-dead cupboard
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Plan Inside Downstairs 1. board games and drawing 2. The Fire
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Plan Inside Downstairs light openings
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Plan Inside Upstairs
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Plan Inside Upstairs Mr Inka Ponka’s attic Nickle Prickle’s room
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Plan Inside Upstairs 1. Nickle Prickle’s bedroom
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Plan Nickle Prickle’s bedroom 1. Nickle Prickle’s inner sanctum 2. a human’s bed
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Section Nickle (closed)
Prickle’s
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sanctum
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Plan Nickle Prickle’s inner sanctum (open) Searching for blankets in the dusty darkness.
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Plan Nickle Prickle’s bedroom always cold, always twilight. square room unbalanced by a slanted roof to the north. horizontal slats in the double doors allow glimpses at the pitch darkness of the sanctum.
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Plan Nickle Prickle’s bedroom
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Situation Plan 1. The Airing Cupboard
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Elevation The Airing Cupboard slide open the squeeking laminate door and clamber up to its warm slats soft sock-and-shirt underlay varies daily. The solid click of the switch turns on the dark and amplifies the television news Downstairs
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Plan The Airing Cupboard’s slats
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Plan The Hallway
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Plan The wind blows through from front to back, slamming the doors on the green carpet and flowery walls. Dragging a knuckle along the luke-warm radiator briefly echoes a chirpy monotone melody Hallway: ball games normally allowed leaping from top of The Stairs not advised climbing hallway walls sometimes allowed breaking glass in door never allowed 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
frosted front door chiming wall The Hallway The Stairs dead-dad cupboard short-cut ledge luke-warm radiator
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Plan 1. The Hatch 2. The Kitchen 3. The Other Room
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Plan 1. frosted window to The Lounge. friends would wonder why we could see into the neighbours house. 2. short-cut ledge 3. second-fastest way down
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Plan dad-dead cupboard cramped. even a skinny kid could barely stand, stumbling on a carpet of too many shoes sharp shelves of tins on one side, reaching out to a wall of coats space for one, hidden and alone, just breath and pulse. coats cold and damp. grown-ups don’t stand still in the dark. no one stands here in the dark. a strip of dusty light. distant rumbling voices between the intimate whisper of polyester friction Behind the coats still written on the wall. dad dead
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Section The Stairs, aka The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire after dark the third stair creaks, the penultimate squeals
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Section The Stairs by day alive by day a place to play running up sends hollow thunder around the place the squeaky banister fixed umteen times ready for elbows and full speed down
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Section The Stairs by night one way at the end of the day, into the high and bulging darkness
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Plan The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire 1. Creak 2. Squeal
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Model The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire
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Plan Inside Upstairs 1. The Landing Gazing into the abyss of the wooden hill, it’s still unclear where The Landing ceiling ends and The Stairs’ begin. lonely and vertical with yellowish light, a forgotten space between bed and Downstairs. the floor groans awake when my mother goes to bed.
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Plan The Lounge and The Other Room The Lounge the sliding frosted doors trap toes and stop the space and warmth leaking out into The Other Room. soft chairs surround a table with the feet of a lion. dustfree antique wood and hard-backed books are lit by brassglass lamps. The Other Room not The Lounge or any other room, it’s open and less tidy and has a hole through to the kitchen. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Grown-up’s books The Hatch dead-dad cupboard The Kitchen The Lounge The Other Room
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Elevation south to The Chimneys from The Front Bedroom - see the sea
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Colours from Home 1. 2. 3. 4.
wood black swan bath yellow chair
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