Psychogeogrphic walk in Devizes
FEBRUARY 3, 2024
28 January, Devizes
There are days when my psyche calls me to go to a specific place and do map-making photography (geography). Usually, a question emerges that threads the needle as I prepare to make a stitch (click).
It was a lovely sunny day, and I had already shot one good roll, a slide-type color film that was not very old- only about five years expired. Despite enjoying it a lot, I found the experience very tiring. I hadn't done it for a while and forgot how immersive it can become. I followed the question, and the answers flashed as images, blends, combinations of words, symbols and sensations. I loved it, nevertheless.
This was the second roll, and the question was a challenging one... I always ask it in locations I have never been before, those that feel like a book as you walk through, look around, and occasionally talk to a stranger.
Can you tell me the true story, please?
My map begins near the local history museum. Looking at rows of traffic cones and moving cars, I notice a skip.
Skip... Bombs...Fence down.
Somebody has smashed a pixel inside the window and made it leak.
I turn the page: Bridewell Street. Bride? Well? What a name... must be something good. Hello?
I am not interested in cars... Oh, perhaps, you would like to know the Grim stories of this place? He doesn't say it, but I get a feeling.
Of course!
This street is called this name because of the prison. What prison? It was right here, see the door?
The door... I do my phone research and circle around to find it (later).
Hangman's walk... When was this? Last century? (he is not completely sure). I can't find it, however, later I do stumble across a place where there used to be an entrance to the medieval castle and people were hung there (written on the plaque).
Cromwell was fighting here with Charles. Do you know Cromwell? There are still cannonball marks on that church. I cannot see it, keep walking, find an abandoned pub, theatre and a working brewery.
Symbolic entanglements. Prisons. There was also the canal with many locks and a lake story involving stolen gold, but I only have 15 shots on the roll...
The sun doesn't last that long at this time of year.
Perhaps I should come back someday!