Tunnel of Love



I’ve just come back from Tunnel Vision, part of Architecture Week, a trip “underneath the pavements in Birmingham is a network of tunnels stretching from Victoria Sq to New St Station”. In my excitement to see subterranean Brum (which I think I inherited from my granddad, who I recall was somewhat obsessed with the possibility of a tunnel between Aston Hall and Holte Church) I hadn’t paid much mind to the art installation by Luke Jerram and Dan Jones – the intriguing sound and light came as a pleasant surprise.

The installations talked about abandonment, with a pile of unloved typewriters and furniture filled with concrete – the ancient, abandoned nature was a little undone for me with the presence of eBay printed despatch emails in the ‘pile of post’ installation (lovely shadow sculpture tho’, see above – EDIT much better image from Luke himself, who tells me that it’s St Gabriel, the patron saint of postmen). A little research would show the building vacated by the Royal Mail very much pre-eBay.

About 300 yards in the dark we came up against a gauze with a light installation behind it – strobes which had a dreamlike effect on dark-adjusted eyes -and that was the end of the trip (the light at the end of the tunnel, surely not that literal? I’m obviously no art critic). I reckon we’d got just about to the front of the Mailbox, not too near New St.

Personally I’d have preferred to get a trip all the way down the tunnel, possibly with a knowledgeable guide – coming out the other end having learnt a little more about the architecture and history of the building. Art that uses architecture as part of its context should be a little more grounded, for me anyway.

You can, and should, see for yourself. It’s on tomorrow, Sunday, and Friday 29 June – Sunday 1 July 2007.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 8:57 pm by Jon Bounds and is filed under architecture, art, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  • You virtually got to the end of THAT tunnel, past the strobe screen, about 20m further was a gate to one of New Streets platforms. But this was locked off and covered by CCTV.

    I know a Postie who used to work in the Victoria P.O. and he tells me of another tunnel that goes under the City Centre down to the now closed 'Big Top' P.O. next to WH Smiths behind Corporation St. This tunnel had no vehicles as it was only built for people to walk down and transfer high security post.

    to view more of the mailbox/new street pics, please view my site above.
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