I wanted to write a list of my favourite cultural jewels in Leeds’ crown directly onto the paving stones of Albion Street, forming the words with discarded chewing gum. I thought this approach would get a conversation going.
The gum wasn’t mine, let me just make that clear. The public street is not a spittoon. My parents were demons about the correct disposal of litter – specially stuff emitted from the mouth – in the receptacles provided. And if ever the position of Sticky Street Substances Prohibition and Intolerance Tzar (SSSPIT) were to be advertised I’ll be the first to throw my hat into the ring. I know I have the qualifications, experience and personal zeal to rid the streets of such vile and reprehensible anti-social behaviour. Until then I applaud the council’s street cleaning staff for mounting such a Sisyphean effort against the menace of ill-mannered mastication.
I spent weeks collecting the material, diligently scraping stiff circular splats off the pavement and sorting into bags according to colour, size and shape. Eventually I had sufficient to compose a decent bullet-ponted list. This lunchtime I set to work just opposite the recently closed Austin Reed shop.
“My Top Ten Cultural Jewels in Leeds’ Crown: They May Not Be Yours?” was my first accomplished line of pavement pointillism
I’d got no further than the Patisserie Valerie when a small crowd formed.
“What you doing?” said a shopper, putting down his bags.
“Can I have a go?” asked a small child, holding out her hand.
“How did you get a grant to do that?” wondered a passing representative of the local cultural cognoscenti.
Before I’d had chance to spell out “1. Temple…”, and explain what the list was for, or shovel half a kilo of chud into a seaside bucket for the kid, a man in a hi-vis jacket and a peaked cap tapped me on the shoulder.
“Have you got permission to do this?”
I hadn’t considered the question of permission. I’d just wanted to initiate a conversation about our city’s cultural crown jewels in the most playful, unobtrusive, innocuous way I could think of.
I muttered something about “free expression.”
“Who do you think you are, John Stuart bloody Mill!” he growled. “Get that muck off my pavement… now!”
I replied that the “muck” had already been removed from a previous pavement – thus saving him an onerous task – and that I thought of my actions as those of a solid civic entrepreneur. I just wanted to initiate a cultural conversation. Or make some provocative art. Or simply indulge in a bit of harmless frivolity. Albion Street was public space, after all. I was interfering not in the slightest with anyone else’s civic liberties, nor with their ability to enjoy all the city had to offer – the public were free to trample on my creation, step around it cautiously, or choose simply to walk by, incuriously.
The enforcer of city centre management byelaw snapped his fingers and a pair of council employees appeared with industrial sized brushes in hand.
“Get rid,” he ordered.
Before I had chance to protest the censorship and reassert my right to promulgate a passing thought – not a permanent mark – in a public space, they swept my composition of legible crud into a pile and threw it in the trash…
Where it shall remain, and possibly where it should have been all along.
Obviously my little fable is nonsense. I have been more than a little austere with the actualite. But I don’t think it’s so far-fetched. And it does raise a few questions that have been niggling at me this week, about public space, the meaning of culture in that Leeds 2023 European Capital of Culture bid, and who the conversation about the bid is meant to be for and about. Mainly it’s a question of those cultural “jewels” – jewels are owned by the precious few, only brought out on special occasions, and best kept in a box…
If we bid to be a City of Culture it would be great if we didn’t enter because we were just a city with some great cultural bits in the middle. And it would be even better if the culture of the city as a whole was better at valuing its rougher diamonds… there maybe something worthwhile in a chewing gum prank, even if all it does is open up a conversation.