'The Gorgies Centre' 2002
81 image 35mm slide projection
7 minutes duration

[the keepers of the archive: Jo and Bridie Jones]

From a press release:
… this unites two seemingly unrelated locations and communities, and through a sequence of 81 slides, (alternating too, between sequences of colour and B&W) prompts us to question our assumptions about where information might be situated, and who appears to be holding power and how 'independence' might be maintained.
It involves a small gypsy community in Kent, who are being hounded off the land they own by a group of racist middle-Englanders and property developers from the nearest town. Chodzko invited MBLC partners, a major architectural practice in Manchester to create an archive of their housing projects using architectural plans, sketches, photographs and notes. Chodzko then offered this archive to the gypsy community to store in their caravans, making it available to the public to visit and research.
This might seem an absurd and dangerous collaboration - the gypsy's holding the material of what would appear to be the 'enemy' - but this network of people and objects have been structured in such a way to open up an imaginative space for both those involved and those viewing it, raising the question ‘what brings these things together’?
Any potential town planners wanting to research social housing in Hulme would, ironically, have this information mediated by gypsies, miles away in Kent, the hope being, “that the rejection of conservative assumptions about what constitutes a ‘home’ and the desire for independence by more marginal, nomadic communities might be incorporated into future public strategy.'