The Alley Cats present... ALLEY ROOM
The idea to hold a spontaneous art exhibit slash party by Dan Duran and the Maryflower Superheads finally culminated with the actual event in a Shoreditch alleyway on 9 June, but by the new, one time collective, Alley Cats.
Besides planning what we thought it would be like - a domestic living room decorated with our artwork for people to hang out in - we had no idea what the result would be, if in fact we would get one at all, before being arrested, or ridiculed.
There was no stopping Arlette who pushed the four of us from the dismembered Dan Duran and the… to go through with it.
Before I knew it she was driving Charlotte and me around Hackney in the next size up for no extra charge moving van scouting for skips to eradicate old furniture.
The first street we turned on to was a good find - a lamp and a chair. Though we nearly lost it when Charlotte set it down on the sidewalk as we went back to grab Arlette who was inquiring from the chair’s previous owner where we could find further unwanted goods. In less than two minutes a lady was off her cycle peering and prodding at the old chair, lifting up the pieces of yellow velvet that once covered its arm. She was about to take until she noticed Charlotte and I stampeeding towards her.
The biggest result of furnishings happened while asking two mechanics the address of the council’s skips. Apparently certain days, in certain councils, are areas to dump your unwanted stuff. Well, we had the days wrong, but we did score a large sofa and huge armchair from these nice men who were also kind enough to back our van out and turn it around after Arlette slightly backed into one of their customer’s cars.
We headed over to Old Street about 4pm to start setting up and to meet with the other Alley Cats. It was the first time I saw the staked out alleyway for our installation. Despite having two residents’ entryways and one club’s exit, it seemed great, however disgustingly dirty… I was sure it was rat infested.
Two cleaned it up for an hour as us other four began hauling out the furniture a few blocks away. Ausra told me straight up, “I’ll help but I can’t really lift things.” We did fine. On our last trip back we were given praise of thanks by the bartender from the club for cleaning up all the sh*t. The two chaps that lived there also commended the new tidiness of their entrance and asked what the hell were we doing as Ellen and Arlette pushed the sofa to the opposite end and Jenny laid down some astro turf.
“Oh do you mind if we make this space into a living room and throw a small get together for the people of the night?”
Amazingly they looked stunned as to why they never thought of such a good idea themselves and agreed… they were artists and also fabulously cool to supply us with electricity to power our boom box and light the fairy lights.
This saved us from carrying and using the generator we rented, which was a huge bonus for me, particularly, as I forgot the manual.
Setting up the space:
Besides planning what we thought it would be like - a domestic living room decorated with our artwork for people to hang out in - we had no idea what the result would be, if in fact we would get one at all, before being arrested, or ridiculed.
There was no stopping Arlette who pushed the four of us from the dismembered Dan Duran and the… to go through with it.
Before I knew it she was driving Charlotte and me around Hackney in the next size up for no extra charge moving van scouting for skips to eradicate old furniture.
The first street we turned on to was a good find - a lamp and a chair. Though we nearly lost it when Charlotte set it down on the sidewalk as we went back to grab Arlette who was inquiring from the chair’s previous owner where we could find further unwanted goods. In less than two minutes a lady was off her cycle peering and prodding at the old chair, lifting up the pieces of yellow velvet that once covered its arm. She was about to take until she noticed Charlotte and I stampeeding towards her.
The biggest result of furnishings happened while asking two mechanics the address of the council’s skips. Apparently certain days, in certain councils, are areas to dump your unwanted stuff. Well, we had the days wrong, but we did score a large sofa and huge armchair from these nice men who were also kind enough to back our van out and turn it around after Arlette slightly backed into one of their customer’s cars.We headed over to Old Street about 4pm to start setting up and to meet with the other Alley Cats. It was the first time I saw the staked out alleyway for our installation. Despite having two residents’ entryways and one club’s exit, it seemed great, however disgustingly dirty… I was sure it was rat infested.
Two cleaned it up for an hour as us other four began hauling out the furniture a few blocks away. Ausra told me straight up, “I’ll help but I can’t really lift things.” We did fine. On our last trip back we were given praise of thanks by the bartender from the club for cleaning up all the sh*t. The two chaps that lived there also commended the new tidiness of their entrance and asked what the hell were we doing as Ellen and Arlette pushed the sofa to the opposite end and Jenny laid down some astro turf.
“Oh do you mind if we make this space into a living room and throw a small get together for the people of the night?”Amazingly they looked stunned as to why they never thought of such a good idea themselves and agreed… they were artists and also fabulously cool to supply us with electricity to power our boom box and light the fairy lights.
This saved us from carrying and using the generator we rented, which was a huge bonus for me, particularly, as I forgot the manual.Setting up the space:
posted by erin at 2:39 pm
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