Artist MIKE NELSON has transformed an old bus into a series of haunting spaces which raise questions about US and the Middle East, discovers Ruth Hedges.
ossibly the craziest thing about the war against terror
and liast against West and Christian faith against
Muslim is that these dichotornies don‘t exist. They've been made up. become entrenched positions. and connections have become eradicated from consciousness — so. the West never funded the Taliban and Mohamed was never a Christian prophet. Also. srnackheids struggling with addiction in small towns and cities throughout the UK and L'SA are nothing to do with world economics and the fact that Afghanistan‘s only commodity with which to deal is opium. Fields of poppies. patrolled by militia. are the gold dust within dust bowls that eventually filter down into a syringe in Pilton.
But artist and Turner Prize nominee Mike Nelson is here to show us that there are — connections that is. His vehicle. quite literally. is a 1954 bus found on a scrap heap in California. It‘s a Green Tortoise. a hippy creation (still running) to rival the legendary Greyhound buses that streaked
across America’s 50 states. Conceived with the idealism of
travel and communal living. the (ireen Tortoises crawled along next to the greyhounds. stopping off for shared cooking. sleeping and exploration.
lintitled The Pumpkin Palace. the bus will reside on Market Street. next to the City Art Centre until Sunday 12 September and has just come on the longest journey of its 50 year life. From San Francisco. where it was originally created and exhibited in 2002. The Pumpkin Palace has travelled through the Panama Canal. across the Pacific ocean. the Atlantic ocean. arriving in Tilbury docks near London and driven in a lorry up to lidinbur‘gh.
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Like other Nelson works. it is something to experience. With only three viewers allowed in at a time. the bus — l5m long and 3m wide m is a dense space for exploration. ()nce taking people to places. it is now a world in itself in which to walk. climb. look and think. Nelson has reconstructed the interior so that you can move from a travelling hospital to an opium den. References to the old American West are scattered throughout. ‘There’s a feel of carriages on the old trains in the
West. where hobos used to hide - there’s a whole library of
witchcraft upstairs.‘ Nelson says. Meanwhile. the crescent symbol on the side of the bus and opium references within locate it firmly in Middle Fastern landscape.
Since growing up as a teenager in the Midlands town of
Loughborough. Nelson has been aware of the interconnectedness of greater world events and private stories. ‘In the early 80s there was a huge heroin boom and I always remember hearing that part of this was due to the revolution in Iran.‘ he says. ‘eren the Ayatollah came to power people couldn‘t leave with currency so they came with suitcases of heroin.’ But our Mike isn‘t anything like a Michael Moore. No way. Nelson is subtle.
‘lFsually when you‘re looking at art you‘re very conscious that that's what you‘re doing.‘ he says. ‘Whereas this wrong- foots you slightly because they’re familiar objects and territories but you‘re not completely aware of what you’re meant to be looking at. The Pumpkin Pu/uu' has a sense of the replicated ready—made. In physical terms you enter into this object in which familiarity is slightly twisted.’ And there's the rub. In some ways Nelson reassures you by creating
Interior views of The Pumpkin Palace, which has journeyed to Edinburgh from San Francisco