A Memorial to the Midsummer Oak*
(Street Intervention, 2016) pvc, steel wire, photographs, wood
This was a guerrilla intervention I constructed, with lots of friends pitching in, in Milton Keynes. It was a memorial to The Midummer Oak*, a tree that was protected, but which died after a shopping centre was built around it.
The piece was erected in an underpass without permission or funding, not done under the umbrella of any arts organization, and lived for only 2 hours, although it took many months to make – in that sense it represents the apotheosis of my practise at the time: much time and work for something immense that changes space, but is agonizingly ephemeral.
People got lost in a sacred forest of memories: plastic garlands in an underpass, each imbued with tiny (donated) pictures of people’s happy memories in Milton Keynes, as well as images of Milton Keynes itself in days gone by, and the life and times of the tragic Midsummer Oak*. After you wove your way to the centre of the sacred forest, there hung a tiny chunk of the Oak itself, martyred, to be touched like a saint’s relic.
Fake Plastic Trees lived for 2 hours on the evening of Tuesday July 12th, 2016. Musicians and poets contributed to what turned out to be an incredible event. Several hundred people attended the event, and I was very moved by the public responses.
(further details below)
Further details:
This might be my most mad piece and probably the most extreme example of my style of work at this time. It was before I’d professionalised, and I spent months doing crazy repetitive making, had loads of my poor mates crawling around an underpass to install a 14m long artwork, all for a 2 hour street pop-up. So, huge amounts of time and work for something immense and beautiful and meaningful that changes space, but generates zero income, and is agonizingly ephemeral. The event was wonderful, with musicians and poets contributing, and both thoughtful and emotional responses from the audience. Several hundred people attended (although nobody, even from the local artworld. This is one of frustrating tropes in my practice – the combination of gratifying public appreciation with artworld non-existence/invisibility).
Milton Keynes itself becomes a theme in my practise – I’ve made a lot of work about MK, or which is grounded in particularly of MK as it explores wider human themes. This work was a memorial to a tree known as The Midummer Oak*, which was a protected ancient Oak in the centre of Milton Keynes, long pre-dating the modern city. It was a place that young people would meet, a beloved local landmark. After a shopping centre was built around it in 2005 (because they weren’t allowed to just chop it down) the oak staged a marvellously theatrical protest by dying, agonisingly slowly, over the next decade, finally pronounced dead in 2016.
I think the people and the memories that are created in a place, the roots we put down, become woven into the fabric of that place. It was always going to be an underpass, as they are classic Milton Keynes infrastructure, and I use them in my work repeatedly, because I find them to be places of almost mystical significance – sunken, below ground-level, where ways cross. I love the beauty of modern materials like concrete, when used well, and wanted to mirror this with the beauty of my PVC trees; in contrast, say, to the fake grass which now occupies the former site of the Midsummer Oak*.
Milton Keynes is a genuinely interesting place. Built with high ideals and designed with care, heart, and intellect. I’m particularly interested in how intended utopias inevitably become dystopias – in this case, how the architectural ideals of a city for living in have been betrayed by successive councils and planning departments. Nothing typifies that more than the building of the new shopping centre, right across Midsummer Boulevard**, which was originally built such that the sun shone down its 2 km length on Midsummer’s Day. This means Milton Keynes itself is a kind of sun temple – entirely destroyed when a second shopping centre was plonked across it, and around the beloved ancient oak.
So, for me, the Oak itself became a kind of martyr and saint of Milton Keynes (May She Rest In Peace). The wood chunk is, to my knowledge, all that has been salvaged from her (I had a mate in the Parks Trust nick it for me!) and it sits, proudly suspended, like a medieval saint’s relic, in the centre of this beautiful plastic mausoleam, for people to touch with due awe and reverence.
Local news coverage here and here. Slightly sniffy national here 😂.
* The Midsummer Oak was an ancient Oak in the centre of Milton Keynes, which long pre-dated the modern city. It began to die in 2005 after a shopping centre was built around it, and was finally declared dead in 2016.
** Midsummer Boulevard was built such that the sun shines down its 2 km length on Midsummer’s Day. This effect was destroyed after a second shopping centre, unsympathetic to the architecture of the city, was built.