It's all about the way you roll...

DSCN0004, originally uploaded by Caroline Cardus.

Here's my account of the the Tate Modern charrette on 10th May 2008.

It was great to be in the Turbine Hall in Tate Modern for a reason rather than to just pass through on the way to look at something else. I’ve always felt the space is a brilliant piece of work in its own right without any other curatorial art in it.

Talking to other wheelchair users on the day confirmed my feeling that the Turbine Hall slope is regarded as a brilliant feature to speed down in a wheelchair. There’s something very powerful about sitting at the top of that slope before swooping down it on the beautifully smooth concrete floor. To me it feels like a feature designed just for wheelchair users, as opposed to the heavy carpets and mean spaces that you often encounter in other buildings.

The day’s events made me think about how the artist Carsten Holler used the Turbine Hall. His work, Test Site (perhaps better known as the slides) let people occupy different places in that customarily serious space in a playful way. Our group had talked before about the volume of the space and how human beings occupied so little of it – as far as I’m concerned Holler nailed it when he made Test Site. YouTube has plenty of clips of people shrieking in delight as they plummet down the slide. I thought it was significant that most of the clips were of adults, as something that came out of our activity was that there shouldn’t be any age restriction on who took part.

The first thing our group did was played. We mucked about. I scooted around at top speed and Tom flew a small helicopter about in order to try and occupy the height of the space. We’d thought about mounting a lightweight camera on it to record other parts of the hall and then play them back at ground level, but regrettably, it was clear that this could not be achieved without hitting a lot of innocent bystanders.

Joolz, hell-bent on mischief, climbed one of the iron pillars by the side of the wall, chucked balls around and made a swing by throwing wool over one of the girders. The (real) security guards told him off several times (which I couldn’t help thinking he took as a measure of success…)

In the end our activity focused around some pool balls Joolz had brought along. It was all about the fun of shooting the balls out of a cardboard tube and chasing them as they gathered speed down the slope. The kinetic energy that they built up felt like a conclusive expression of my relationship to the space. We encouraged everyone present to chase the balls, which also gave the activity a nice focal point.

I wish we could have made more impact playing back our photos and film clips. We projected them through the frosted glass walls that ran the length of the education suites. The glass filtered the images in a very pleasing way. I’d have loved to be able to project larger scale films along the whole length of the walls with close-up shots of the balls rolling directly toward the viewer – possibly it would have added a new dimension to an otherwise flat wall, but hey ho, in only a few hours there was definitely potential for further experimentation.

I was delighted that another group’s activity (How quickly can you get from A to B?) used the slope as well. I’m pretty sure when Herzog & de Meuron converted the Turbine Hall they didn’t realize it would become such an exciting feature for a small section of society, but one day I hope they get to know that it is.

Caroline Cardus