Decay has always fascinated me, and I've been doing a lot of research into it and Earth Art. I like the idea of the Earth 'taking back'. I've always thought decaying buildings to be a sign of a 'once was', times that had been prosperous but either no longer are, or deemed as obsolete. Something bothersome to this end is that most buildings simply are not obsolete. Equipment can be recycled and re-used to either produce newer things, or small updates to continue production. Much of this does not happen from private ownership. For instance, a closed GM factory still has much to offer the world, a whole production facility! The land has been built upon, resources allocated, machinery is held inside, even the building itself. Yet, most of these buildings simply sit there and decay.
My original idea was to haul an old porcelin bathtub to the river and to give the river a bath. Rivers are often seen as source of life, a source of cleanliness and prosperity. Yet, look at the James, or any other river these days: it is filled with algae (from a messed up Nitrogen cycle), pollution, trash, and so forth. In fact, it seems that rivers these days are the exact antithesis of what their ideal forms represent.
I thought it would be a bit funny, a bit interesting to give the river a bath, and to "clean it back" to this ideal [previous existing] state. To me, it seems that the James has undergone some decay. The significance of the bathtub would be for one, to wash the river and to clean it, but also this object of the past is now restoring the river to a past-state.
After talking with Brad and thinking over some more, I might simply place the bathtub in locations around Richmond and photograph it there, and ultimately, place it in the river. I was also thinking of creating a video and showing the manual labor that goes into moving a large solid porcelain bathtub (it weighs somewhere around 125-150 pounds).
Along the James near Riverside drive there is the old hydroelectric plant. Just below it is a wooden bridge that is crossed often, by pedestrians and Richmond police cars. Just below that is a concrete 'shelf' that extends into the river, and a large pool. I was thinking of placing the tub in the middle there, so people could look down from the bridge and see it, and also walk out for a closer view.
Another idea I had was to still do a photoshoot of sorts, but do in a fashion similar to political libel. Create an ad campaign to vote for Mr. A.Bathtub for Mayor. A slogan would be something along the lines of, "we're cleaning up this town!" and pictures would be taken on top of buildings, parks, by the river, etc...
I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do yet, but I do have an idea.
