Mark Fell: interview, Art Sheffield 2016

Mark Fell’s Structural Solutions to the Question of Being is being exhibited at The Link pub on the Park Hill housing estate. Fell, who describes himself as a “Rotherham-based music producer and artist”, brings a wealth of local knowledge to this site-specific installation: a loving recreation, in a derelict brutalist housing estate pub, of the heady days of the 1980s and 90s underground music scene, as well as a far from rose-tinted recollection of the politics of the day.

Among the dangling, cheap chandeliers, the ruined wallpaper and flashing blue and red disco lights, Fell plays a broadcast from a pirate radio station that used to operate from the Park Hill flats, from one night in 1992 – when Fell would have been a regular listener and even contributor. Elsewhere, that evening’s DJs – Rebecca Seager and Solid State – are interviewed about the musical landscape of the day, while, on one wall Fell charts a “timeline” in fluorescent Post-it notes of the 80s and 90s, featuring pivotal moments in sound and recording technology, as well as drug and music culture. Scattered across the floor are postcards emblazoned with upbeat slogans, reminiscent of the euphoric dance tracks of the day, which contrast powerfully with televised and transcribed verbatim Conservative party broadcasts (most notably Peter Lilley’s 1992 speech in which he described New Age Travellers as “locusts”).

Mark Fell
Structural Solutions to the Question of Being
The Link Pub, Park Hill, via South Street, Sheffield
16 April – 8 May 2016

Interview by VERONICA SIMPSON
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY