Corrugation Street was a project straight from the heart of Cambridge’s homeless community. Working with artist, Linton Bocock over a period of ten weeks a number of homeless people seized the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings about being homeless in Britain in 2008.

Armed with a cardboard box, some materials and some intense experiences, they offered a glimpse of modern life that most people don’t see.

as part of the Cambridge Open Art Space Fringe

Back projection of Scooby Doo's Halloween, creepy sounds from the Taxi with live performance shadows by visiting gorilla ...

Disappearance of Latitude: Live Presence and Realtime in Contemporary Practice Symposium at the School of Art in Chicago.

ONLINE TEXT ONLY PDF TRANSCRIPT - for those who asked ... thank you.

An extremely successful group show profiling the extraordinary work of urban artist Ghetto Kid, a video from TNWK, open decks in the house and drawing/collages by th enigmatic WiLb ...

there was ... a 12 year singing west End musical numbers
Playstation Grand theft Auto on the TV
Taxi powerpoint on my computer screen
live "spitting" (rap) in the shed with a brazier going and Ghetto Kid's artworks hanging on the charred walls spotlight using clip on LED lights hanging from a adhoc spider's web lighting grid strung across the ceiling using bailer twine - very cool
Ghetto Kid sold 11 out of the 12 framed prints and received a commission for an office wall mural ..
fantastic mix of cultures in my living room this weekend - extraordinary meetngs and conversations - Peter's Dad and Jamie ..... he's taking him to see Porgy and Bess ...
a SAMPLER CD of a young local rapper with artwork that they production lined (on my table) 50 copies, pooling their dole money to get photocopies & labels etc
a 10 year old boy doing great very sensitive stuff on the decks in conversation with people chatting and the PS2 sounds
another crew with video camera and more DJs on the decks
it was a radiotaxi feel
in the winter with a fire in my shed ...
enjoying the edge and the newness of all this - learning so much

A month ago I was woken at 5am by my smoke alarms - "someone" had set fire to my shed and it was spreading into the house .... fortunately the taxi was fine so I'm assuming the arson was random rather than personal. A lot of stored work was lost along with materials and the entire contents of my larder. On the up side a space has been created and a reason for an Abbey Taxi event to take away the smoky aftertaste ... Ignition (by persons unknown) will be a group show including the work of urban illustrator - Ghetto Kid, WiLb and TNWK ... taking place in the burnt out Shed, the Taxi and the House with music, refreshments and good conversation ... it could also be a Christmas shopping opportunity or a chance to start the festive partying in style ... looking forward.

Hazel's "DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF" is the first magnetic message from a neighbour on Stanesfield Rd ! - it combines perfectly with Caroline Wright's message based on the four principles of the Japanese Tea Ceremony: Tranquility, Harmony, Purity and Respect as this year's message for the Summer.

The MAGNETIC MESSAGES service is now extending to include translocal as well as neighbourhood participants. Submissions are invited and welcomed by email to info@abbeytaxi.info. Please include detailed description of how you would like the text displayed. All participants will receive a digital image of their message as displayed on Abbey Taxi.

GUIDELINES

Maximum line length 1 = 36 characters (incl. spaces)

Maximum line length 2 = 30 characters (incl. spaces)

Maximum line length 3 = 22 characters (incl. spaces)

Occasionally a translocal MAGNETIC MESSAGE may need to be combined with a local one. Messages will remain in place until they are replaced by another submission or become out of date. A selection of magnetic messages will be archived in the Magnetic Messages section of this website.

email>

Dear Friends,
 
At our first work-in-progress of our new performance presented last Sunday at The Chicago Cultural Center, we announced that this, our ninth performance, will be our last.  We have attached the complete text of the announcement for you to read.
 
We began working on this performance with a research trip to Zagreb a year ago.  We plan to premier the work in fall, 2007.  After we have completed creating and performing it, the company will end.
 
This decision comes from the challenge that all artists face: how to continue to grow, to venture into the unknown. We intend this end to present itself as a beginning. We have considered what comes after Goat Island – the multiple futures of company members, associate members, friends, audiences, students – those encountered and those yet to be encountered. We will do what we can to help sustain and multiply the practices of collaboration that the 20+ years of Goat Island have brought us. Each of us will continue to work in, and to advocate for, the field of performance. Our attitude as we arrive at this decision is one of gratefulness. It is time to find the change that growth necessitates. We end Goat Island in order to make a space for the unknown that will follow.
 
We have initiated this change ourselves, not in response to internal or external adversity, but creatively. We approach it, as we have tried to approach all changes – through a collaborative creative process. We want to provide an example of ending, of lastness, but it is an example we have not yet defined. We hope to discover that example through the two-year process of making this performance.
 
As always, thank you for your continued support of and interest in our work.  We look forward to sharing the performance with you.
 
Sincerely,

Goat Island

my reply>

Dear Mark (and all Goats and Judd)
just last weekend I was in Wales - Abergavenny - celebrating Max Holloway's 50th birthday - camping under trees beside a river beneath a mountain - the sun shone fierce and bright ... Winnie was there too and one evening beside the campfire we talked a little of how moved we were to receive your email and exciting/inspiring/energising news -
So, today is my first quiet moment after a hectic few weeks to be a little reflective - there's a paradise garden in the Taxi right now - a grass seated idyll in a vehicle in my front garden created by a neighbour (because she wanted to! - it's not art!!!) - a garden historian - there are roses and lavendar honeysuckle and pinks - it smells heavenly and the birds are singing ...

Cris has just arrived and is snoozing away at his jet lag - it's a perfect english summer day - it's June 17th - the day my brother died, a good day to be reflective ...
endings can be so hard and painful yet they bring with them such joys and so many new possibilities - I wept with delight and empathy when I read your announcement - so excited for you all, so glad you've been able together to make a powerful and creative statement about your decision at this stage - how fundamentally this will ground your final work together ...
I followed my instinct ending the Zwillinge Project and similarly with the recent transition of the Taxi - it was tough, emotionally challenging a little like parenting a child through adolescence - (have just been spending a little time with my eldest, Liam, and realising that now our relationship has moved beyond that flip-flop phase into something more evenly harmoniously shared ... ) mingled with the transitions in TNWK's working relationship - it was very hard at times - almost buckled and fell and have resorted to the "magic pills" which are helping me back, but more so I am restored by statements and actions like yours and by looking out of my window and seeing two boys on their bikes peering into the Taxi garden and smiling, and by the fact that the press and the TV and the radio have not included me in their copy at all - I am simply the care-taker now, that's where I need to be, where I want to be and where I find myself feeling right, fulfilled, creative and happy taking care in a neighbourhood that extends from Marge next door to you all there in Chicago. (btw the boys are now sitting on the Taxi on the turf seats smelling the flowers)
I'm drawing and cutting out and sticking ...
my love to you all and looking forward to what comes
take care
Kirsten
the boys have now cycled off down the road and the birds are still singing

Michael McCormak's project the McCleave Gallery of Fine Art visits Abbey Taxi for one day only. The project is a not for profit, independently run portable art gallery. It has hosted a number of exhibitions in Canada since its launch in 2002. The gallery houses shows by emerging and established artists, challenging them to consider community, mobility, and the borderlines between art and the institution, and “public” and “private” spaces.

McCleave Gallery of Fine Art website

The 2006 season artists' books exhibition explores the concept of ‘Lineage’. The Gallery is travelling from Halifax, Nova Scotia (where the suitcase originated) to Ireland, the Netherlands and UK in an attempt to trace back the lineage of the McCleave family and offering audiences along the way a chance to explore the many ways that 18 artists have responded to the theme of "Lineage'. To accompany the 2006 McCleave Lineage Tour, a limited edition of 200 sets of 6 postcards have been made, each with an image of the McCleave suitcase gallery with its attendant standing in front of various monumental structures relevant to the concept of the lineage tour. The background images were found from a Canadian encyclopedia published in 1956 by the Grolier Society of Canada Ltd. with the gallery attendant with suitcase in hand pasted into the foreground.

Undaunted I have continued to put up signs – I have a bargain roll of magnetic material so its easy enough to stencil more letters. I did put up a msg asking for the letters back and today returning from swimming I found the letters F U C K O & F on my doormat.

What a wonderful mixed message to me, returning my letters and telling me to FUCK OF (sic). Here I am holding in the words of Miwon Kwon the “adjacencies and distances between one thing, one person, one place, one thought, one fragment next to another." and its okay.

The Taxi is back - almost exactly in the same position - no more vandalism. One day a knock on the door - it's tipping with rain but this cyclist spotted what he thought was the Taxi's window left open and wanted to let me know.

Peg and Tony both tell me they're glad it's back, that they missed it, Peg even said it didn't feel like home without the Taxi.

Advertised a Drum Kit for sale on Magnetic Messages - 3 enquiries and sold within a week - so people are taking notice.

Today the Taxi departed (temporarily for 10 days) to take part in 209radio's FM broadcast to the city - acting as an additional sound recording/listening space outside the radio studio. Last night it was shifted around by 90 degrees ready for loading on the transporter and around midnight I heard a gang of kids coming up the street shouting and laughing - there was a loud crash - but I didn't take much notice - this morning I discover the side window of the Taxi smashed. It's fascinating - after nearly 4 years of no vandalism - the night that it subtly shifts position it becomes a target. Change is so threatening?

MAGNETIC MESSAGES is launched .... a neighbourhood announcement service for local events, activities, personal messages, jokes - I hope some adhoc late night anagrammisations .... first message advertsing Lisa Ucan's Oriental Belly Dancing on Saturday Mornings - she tells me she's had at least one person joining in because she saw it advertised on the Taxi!