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 ................... In Ireland to visit family, we found ourselves stationed on the edge of B_______ – a characterless village near the River Faughan. Claustrophobic, several times each day we would embark on a extended walk - though with our minds elsewhere, and with little sense of our surroundings, would set off merely in search of distraction (drawn across a field by the sight of livestock, or into a housing estate by the sound of laughter).  ................... ...................  ...................  ................... ...................  ................... On our second day, a boarded-up lodge piqued our interest, and so we started down a nearby dirt track. Alongside ran a tributary of the river; and our initial intention was to follow the stream as it meandered down to the confluence. We had already started our descent – squeezing through a barbed wire fence - when suddenly in the distance there loomed some kind of cooling tower. As we edged closer a series of derelict buildings hove into view, an entire complex soon revealing itself. Ringfenced in steel, the site was comprised of dozens of low rise structures, though only the walls remained intact. Everywhere roofs had collapsed, trusses scattered on the floor like a child’s playset. Again, nature was in the ascendency – walls veined with river-gorged ivy, the floors blanketed in weeds and ragwort.  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... Subsequent research has revealed the complex to be a derelict bleachworks – a branch of the textile industry of which there are now few traces, the majority having closed by the 1960s. An inevitable casualty of the declining cotton industry, they quickly followed the mills into extinction; and most have long since been demolished.  ................... ...................  ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... As with any trade, bleaching developed its own peculiar lexicon; and through my reading I have since learned; of beetling frames, blueing houses and hacking machines; of jobs such as crofter, maker up and blaterdown. Few traces of this work remain, however – a gear wheel affixed to a wall, the remnants of a mangle, half a roller. Instead the debris is mostly structural (window frames, cladding, concrete pillars)...  ................... ...................  ...................  ................... In its ruined antechambers and preternatural quiet, the complex recalled the terrain of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. As if to underline the comparisons, the zone was visited by constant drizzle (water “sluicing, streaming, coursing and dripping” being a leitmotif of all Tarkovsky’s films). Here a network of aqueducts, troughs and rivulets funnelled rain quietly around the site (feeding a vast subterranean world, glimpsed only through small inlets, of vaults, catchbasins and sump pools). ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... Within this drowned world, plants flourished – submerged beams coated in green sludge, clumps of algae circuiting small puddles. In the larger pools, rushes, reeds and sedges lined the perimeter, while beneath the surface, strange macrophytes swayed gently with the current (“exquisite marine wraiths that fluttered together like the spirits of a sacred neptunian grove”). Animals were more furtive – birds nestled silently between wall and beam; damselflies and water beetles rarely breaking cover.  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ................... ...................  ...................  ................... ...................  ................... In what remained of our holiday, we returned frequently. At first taking photographs – drawn towards textures, details, the verdigris overlay of a copper pipe- we eventually settled into a pattern of dispersal and drift. In Tarkovsky’s film, the characters venture in search of a secret room (in which it is rumoured people’s innermost desires are fulfilled ) though for us, our routes were circuitous, repetitive (and increasingly sensitive to changing configurations of light, rainfall, sound – all that was transient and fluid).  ................... ...................  ................... ................... ................... |
.....#5 – Bleachworks - Ireland [Summer 2009 – visited 2008]