You’re sat in traffic on “insert road Island Roads have dug up”, the newest extreme weather beating down, you reminisce – there was a time when you could take the train from Cowes to Newport, Newport to Ryde. No? Well, there was. The smell of low tide hits you, the stench of the Ooze…
Before the Quay Arts dispatched its first cream tea, before The Bargeman’s Rest pulled its first pint of Fuggle Dee Dum, before County Hall stamped its first bill, before the sweaty brows of bargemen pumped the lifeblood of commerce into the heart of our community, before the Royal brewery of Mew Langtons brought its hearty brews to the lips of Queen Victoria and to the edges of the British Empire, there was a sticky primordial patch of life-giving mud at the confluence of the rushing waters of the Medina known as The Ooze…not much has changed.
For as long as anyone can remember there has been a quay there but what can the memories and stories of the past tell us about our future? What happens when industry simply disappears? The buildings still stand but what do they stand for?
In Greek mythology, the Lethe was a river in Hades that was said to erase the memories of the living before embarking to the underworld. We seek to reverse Lethe, to preserve and explore the memories of the quayside and the river that our community was built upon.
A workshop production by Deadman, commissioned by Quay Arts, as part of CAN YOU HEAR US?
