takeaway

Nick Sykes and Jason Green are looking very pleased with themselves, all grubby in a derelict Chinese Chippy on Berry Street. The old toilet in the far corner of the room has just been ripped out. Surprisingly, the more dominant smell is that of curry rather than the latent, otherwise more obvious, smell of open pipes.

Why are they smiling so? Are they mad? Are they shit fetishists, I ask myself? Are they…nihilists?

No (they are Yorkshiremen, anyway), Nick Sykes, along with Lucienne Cole, are Directors/Curators of this old Chippy. Parkingspace started life in 1998: an artist-led initiative in Liverpool with grant aid from The NorthWest Arts Board Franchise scheme. From garage to supermarket, Parkingspace is a moving gallery, or gallery ‘space’, currently residing in the (soon to be) renovated Lux Chinese at 37 Berry Street, L1. The ‘gallery’ has many aims and objectives, and while the constitution is genuine: to build international artistic links; to bridge the gap for recent graduates between college and becoming self-employed artists, the Takeaway in itself is the real point.

"A lot of what gets written down just confuses things," says Nick. "You have to write certain things in certain ways to get funding. You have to write a constitution."

Instead, Takeaway is much more an "exhibition of space" (as Nick puts it) than an exhibition of individual, autonomous pieces of art. Neither is it, strictly speaking, a ‘gallery’.

"Because of its position, and because it doesn’t have white walls, it’s not for people who’ve done their work to bring it into a gallery and hang it up. Because of the nature of the space and the Chinese wooden walls, it just wouldn’t work."

Nick and Lucienne are inviting people to make use of the potential of the space and, perhaps, its context. The ‘gallery’ doesn’t just exist on the inside: the windows and its immediate environment are all part of the concept. Even people looking in at the gallery through a passing bus are momentarily and unavoidably part of the Takeaway. Neither is concept prescriptive ("French Fries welcome") or the theme of food.

"It would be nice to just have something to takeaway with you, whatever that is," says Lucienne.

You never know, it could still be a bag of chips. Or French Fries.

TAKEAWAY opens on Friday 6th October. Website: www.parkingspace.f9.co.uk