Project Text-tiles

Adrian Jones

Title: Project Text-tiles

Artist/s: Adrian Jones

Year: 1991

Category: Integrated/Tiles

Site: Perth Station

Location Details: Perth Station, Platform 5

Description:

A series of 15 400x400mm brass and black terrazzo tiles are embedded in the paving along Platform 5. The Text-tiles are either grouped together to form narrative commentaries or placed as individual statements, offering ideas of significant moments and people of the railways, such as “riding camels on this platform is strictly prohibited.

Artist/s Statement:

In developing this work I was drawn at the outset, to the many histories which converge at this site. There were stories related to me by long-time commuters, railway employees and union representatives. Many of the anecdotes can be sourced through newspaper items. Publications on railway history and reports – particularly those on the redevelopment of the station – also provide a context for reading the station’s past and present. For my project, the oral culture of railway employees was my main source of ideas. It exists as a vital social memory of this place. The relationship of people to technology, and both of these to our social and government institutions are connected in and to this place. Drawing on the body of knowledge about these relationships and presenting it back to the institution itself for approval has been a most rewarding activity. I have, literally, set in concrete some of the observations, and I offer them to the public as a recognition of the significance of this particular social environment.