Tell an Untold Story: My Journey

I think that all of the objects that I collected represent my journey quite well.

• The leaf encapsulates of all of the different colours on the canal in addition to the ‘natural’ side of it.
• The Glen's bottle represent the young people who hang out on the canal at night drinking, who both the Canal Trust guy and the Fisherman spoke about.
• The pile of ripped up scratch cards reflect the many piles of rubbish that I found along the canal bank outside the city.
• The bag of hand made bracelets reflect all of the remnants of people living there that I found on the banks (like a tent and a den full of photographs).
• The wheel was something that I took out of a pile of old stuff from one of the many abandoned shops and factories in Leeds Dock.
• The flyer was from the Arms Museum at Liberty Dock (the only tourist destination there).

What went well?

• I am really happy with my interviews. Initially I don't think that I was going to have the courage to approach one person, let alone record three 5 minute interviews. I found that once I had approached a person the conversation flowed well and I discovered much more interesting things than I did from my own observation of the canal.
• I also think that the collected ephemera sum up my journey perfectly and are perhaps the most interesting thing that I recorded. Collecting objects was just a secondary thing but having brought them back I think that they really create a sense of the place as well as triggering my own memories of the journey. 

What challenges did I face?

• I really struggled to approach strangers to interview them. It took me two hours of walking up the canal before I plucked up the courage to approach anyone at all. I think that I could have maybe made this easier for myself by writing a list of questions to ask beforehand, rather than making it up as I went along. 
• I also don't think that I did enough drawing on location because it was too cold. I think that I discovered more about my location drawing directly from it, rather than from photos. i.e. I would be drawing one thing and I'd be distracted by something more interesting or I was able to document noises as well as visuals. 

What could I have done differently and how am I going to move forward?

• I am really happy with the people that I interviewed, they were all really interesting characters. I just wish that I had asked them if they had any stories about the Canal. I think that this would sprung some more interesting ideas than simply getting factual information from them. 
• At the minute I have lots of information about lots of different elements of my journey. What I need to do now is to hone in on one idea to research further. I am therefore going to do some brainstorming before my tutorial on Monday. At the moment the themes that I am considering are - the clash between the natural and the man made, the simple beauty of the canal, the people I meet along the canal and the remnants they leave or the declining economy of Leeds Dock.

My journey: