Mr Monkey sees Something in the Pipeline at the CUBE, 9th March
After touring osa/MERZEN/ Mr Monkey found another exhibition in the basement of the CUBE.
Mardale, a valley in the Lake District, was flooded in 1935 to make Haweswater Resevoir to supply water to Manchester. A hamlet at the head of the valley, Mardale Green, was blown up house by house (except for the church) by the Royal Engineers.
To memorialise the flooding of Mardale, Jason Minsky and William Titley decided it would be a good idea to carry some water in relays the 100 miles from Haweswater to Heaton Park. They plan to complete the project by flooding a model of Mardale Green constructed from Kendal Mint Cake.
Something in the Pipeline is a documentation of the project, showing what they've found out and how far they've got.
Mr Monkey spent some time studying maps of the Lake District and of the route the pair are intending to take, reading extracts from their blog and websites about Mardale. He was a little disappointed to find that while there was a place to build a Kendal Mint Cake hamlet, and there were some boxes of Kendal Mint Cake, there were no sugary minty buildings waiting to be swept away. So he decided that it would be a good idea to come back again later.
8th April
Mr Monkey was informed that if he went to the CUBE on the evening of April 8th he'd be able to see the culmination of Jason Minsky and William Titley's Something in the Pipeline project. This sounded like fun, so he scampered along.
Mr Monkey quickly noticed that the model valley was now full of small houses made from Kendal mint cake.
While his humans found out that they were allowed more than one glass of wine each, Mr Monkey investigated some bottles labelled Manchester Syrup. These bottles were going to be filled with a non-drinkable 'energy drink' made by dissolving Kendal Mint Cake in water, and sold as an artistic souvenir of the project.
Everyone went outside onto Portland Street to watch Minsky and Titley finish their journey from Haweswater, cheering as they arrived on the final leg from Heaton Park, where the pipeline from the Haweswater resevoir ends.
Inside the gallery the two artists poured their symbolic sample of water from the real reservoir into their model valley, and then answered questions about the project while water poured out of a hose pipe and around their feet.
Mr Monkey watched the water flowing into the valley, taking great care not to get too close to the potentially dangerous water. It wasn't really flooding as such, but the houses were definitely suffering from unwanted dampness and the gallery started to smell of mint.
Mr Monkey waited until the base of the church tower melted and the tower fell down. Realising that it would be quite some time before the whole village succumbed to the water and turned into Manchester Syrup, and even longer until the the valley was full of water, Mr Monkey made his humans take him home.
Something in the Pipeline runs until April 16th 2011.
After touring osa/MERZEN/ Mr Monkey found another exhibition in the basement of the CUBE.
