2 Tate Collective Liverpool with Ruth Ewan and Åbäke 2 INtrODUctiON Me and my friends were in a family park near my house, we were only young, like 13? 14? And we’re not The title of this art work relates to a that intimidating, I mean, look at me! conversation between Tate Collective We were just hanging around on the Liverpool and Ruth Ewan. We discussed how roundabout and there was another young people use and relate to the spaces they family there. inhabit in the city. I don’t know, I definitely felt like This discussion explores the idea of the scary teenagers in the park, like where young people belong. Where are the ‘stay away from them’ or something. spaces allocated for young people within the I don’t know, I felt in the way, a bit city? Why are the spaces that young people of an inconvenience, like, you feel choose to inhabit so often given negative like a threat, don’t you? Not like I’m connotations? Where are the young people threatening, but I felt a bit like they supposed to go? And why are we trying so thought I might be, like a bother to hard to ‘keep them off the streets’? them or something. 4 A MEMBER OF tate COllectiVE LIVERPOOL DEScriBES HER trip TO liVerpOOL’S CHAVASSE parK TO ASK YOUNG peOple HOW THEY Feel ABOUT USING THE Space. They spoke more positively than negatively, they didn’t want to change anything, and it didn’t seem like there was too much bother up there anyway. I asked about the liverpool one guards, and if the young people ever got moved on, but they said that only really happened when one of the groups was drinking, and then the guards felt obligated to move them all on, no matter if they were making trouble or not. So they said that’s quite annoying. There was definitely a sense of mutual respect and agreement among them, like, they definitely all have their own little sections of Chavasse park. When i was speaking to them they seemed like they needed someone more sociable to instigate it kind of? I was speaking to two lads and a couple of girls came up to us kind of like hey girl, what you asking them, ask us so I spoke to them too. It was all pretty casual, I knew that if I went up to them with a pen, paper, a recorder, or even a camera, straight away they’d be like she wants something, she’s going to ask us to answer a survey, like when I was speaking to the guy at first he was like have you got a questionnaire? But i just told him it’d be general questions rather than have ticking boxes or whatever. Yeah, I think it’s just, if you’re a young person you know that if someone comes at you with a clipboard, like, you immediately refuse. In the midst of Liverpool One, I think chatting just put me at ease and I think Pencil drawing by Sumuyya Khader it put them at ease and made them feel a bit more comfortable. I just made sure I addressed them as a group, but then when one guy stepped up and took charge the rest were more comfortable with him speaking on their behalf. So yeah, I think just having people be anonymous as well, especially if they’re younger makes it easier, in a sense, and if they want their name then they can have their name, because I think at that age you do kind of travel as a group, you do have individual voices but you’re kind of friends for a reason because you’ve got that common theme or something? 5 6 Members of the Collective invited family and friends to share their experiences of growing up in Liverpool. ANONYMOUS, 51 It was the summer of 1981 and I was an auxiliary nurse working in Princes Park hospital. The riots had started and a lot of the elderly patients, upon hearing the noise and seeing the smoke, thought they were back in the war days. They were crying and very scared about what might happen to them. It was a very frightening and harrowing time. The majority of patients were evacuated to the Women’s hospital on Catherine street and the Royal Hospital. On seeing the evacuation some of the rioters and also local people hearing what was going on helped with the evacuation. I was only 20 at that time and still living at home with my parents and siblings in that area. Given that unlike now there were no mobile phones none of us knew whether the family was safe or not. I was escorted part of the way home by two police officers along with a couple of nurses still in our uniforms which traveling to and from work in uniform was frowned on then. My family were all safe and relieved that everyone was accounted for and ok. ANONYMOUS, 40S Carnival time in Liverpool not sure of the year think it was late 70’s and you would always look forward to see what a guy called Shadow would appear as this one year I can still vividly remember him as a fifty pence piece which was a sight to be seen. 7 THE ArtiST It was my old friend’s birthday and we went out for a meal at Nando’s by Queen Square. It was boring because that group of friends only talked about boys and getting drunk. But I still attended out of courtesy. The meal was ok until the waiter spilt a glass of rosé on me. I was annoyed but to the joy of my friends, they received a free bottle of rosé because of the accident. The girls got tipsy and I started feeling annoyed because they kept pulling on me and being arrogant because they wanted to look cool. Then, we went off to Concert Square and I watched—and reluctantly followed— the girls’ desperate attempt to get into clubs. It was just sad and I got extremely annoyed at their behaviours. So, I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I don’t really like going clubbing—at least with them. It was sad because we ended up in a tiny bar with sleazy men dancing next to us. And it was my friend’s 18th birthday, that’s why getting into a club was a big deal. I had a proper meal but they only ordered chips— that pissed me off too. THE GirlFrieND I’ve been trying to think of a story for ages but my brain is so dead that everything I think of sounds stupid when I try and word it. Can you put into decent prose the story of the man who asked who had died when I was carrying those flowers my boyfriend bought me... you know how it goes? Or ask him, he’ll be better at this. THE BOYFrieND We were walking along the waterfront, me and my girlfriend. I’d bought her some flowers, and she was carrying them—or I might have been carrying them because she didn’t want to carry them around everywhere. No, I’m pretty sure she was holding them at this point. It was near a Superlambanana at the back of the Liverpool Museum, we were just walking along like usual—we go there quite often. A bit of a ragged looking old man was walking in the other direction to us and said in a jolly manner ‘who’s died?’ My girlfriend didn’t miss a beat and replied ‘no one—yet’ before I could realise he was talking about the flowers. It was one of those funny little moments. We ended up in stitches somehow, so whenever we see someone with flowers now we say to each other ‘who’s died?’ 8 8 THE OlD TIMER Outside the old Lewis’. You know, not the bit on the main road. I was saying goodnight to a girl I was courting, when I seen some dodgy fella walking up to us. I thought I better hang around a bit here, and he comes up to us, to her actually, and says give us your bag. I was like who the fuck are you mate? Fuck off. She was telling me to ignore him but he wasn’t going to go away. It was dark remember, and he had his hand in his pocket and said I’ve got a gun here. So she gave him her bag, but I wasn’t having it and said don’t give it to him, but she gave it him and was pushing us away from him saying he’s got a gun, so I had to step back, and he was halfway down the road now. I shouted after him what did you have there? And he pulled out just a knife. I was going mad if I’d have known it was just a knife I’d have battered him. CarOL, 48 Liverpool, Dingle growing up in tenements, with large playgrounds, it felt like hundreds of children playing British bulldog, in some organised, complicated set of rules and we ran round as if our life depended on it. The stone steps worn thin in the middle. The smell of the communal chute where we used to throw our rubbish down each landing had its own drawer on a hinge open it throw your rubbish in and it would hit the huge bins on the ground floor.