Commissioned by Multistory for Wednesbury Day, 17/06/2023
I’ve long been obsessed with tourist tat and holiday souvenirs- this project gave me the opportunity to devise a collection of these for the historic town of Wednesbury. These were presented on a market stall and the audience could win them by playing a game of Splat-The-Rat or sharing a memory of the town.
My father’s family hails from there, and I was eager to celebrate the place where I’d spent a lot of my childhood. The first phase was spent in research of both the town history and short run manufacturers of these goods. The eventual items were:
Genuine Wednesbury Chobbling Tube
Wednesbury was a world leader in tube manufacturing, so what better way to celebrate it than with steel grey striped rock with it’s old nickname of ‘Tube Town’ running through it?
‘Chobbling’ is a Black Country dialect work meaning ‘to crunch noisily in the mouth’.
Three Tea Towels
One focused on the history of the town including archaic versions of its name, notable figures in its past and the phrase wild fire and tame water which has been used to describe it in the past. The next relates an old folk poem about The Dragon of Wednesbury Churches, and the last is a recipe for the Black Country delicacy Orange (or battered) chips.
St. Bartholomews Fan
St Bartholomews Church is said to be on the site of and using some of the timbers of Æthelæd’s fortification of the town against the Vikings. It was renovated in the 19th century, and is one of the finest examples of an Arts and Crafts movement place of worship in the country.
The fan design is a photograph of one of the chapel ceilings.
Wednesbury Pipe
Wednesbury has always been renowned for its clay, which was particularly widely used in clay pipe making. These pieces of clay pipe were mudlarked from the banks of the Thames and presented in floating frames. These had a label which read:
Wednesbury clay
Retrieved from London
Brought back home
To travel again.
Over 1000 pieces of tourist tat were distributed in 6 hours.
Vicky Roden 