‘No Diving’: Recovered Film and Recovered Memories

Abstract

‘No Diving’ was a site-specific oral history and moving image installation funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund that examined the lido at Hilsea, Portsmouth as a locus for memories and recollections by the local community. The project set out to recover archive film of the building and record oral history interviews contextualising this found material, which would eventually be re-projected on to the building as a site-specific event. The project brought the artist to a personal, and the community to a collective moment of catharsis as the images and voices played over the lido superstructure. For the artist: a moment where personal and family history colludes with the sense of belonging embodied within an architectural space. For the community: a moment of reflection and re-projection of collective memories in which archive films and oral histories relocate the past within the present. The project was designed as an experimental/experiential documentary system that would engage with the community as producers of their own historical identity. The project questioned the nature of documentary since the real documentary could only be shown at the lido as a live performance event in which the audience participated as observers and the observed. In this way, the building served as a bi-directional apparatus, which simultaneously captures and re-projects historical identities through the camera lens of the project process. This project model is transferable and can be pointed at any building or architectural location. It turns a building into a living museum; a site of community practice that produces history and re-circulates identities.