The reCyculture, sculptural installations were installed in locations across Kent during August 2012.

The installations were in two parts:

• Physical installations on walls, rooftops, poles, fences and bike parking racks, among other places.

And,

• Virtual installations, where your stories and experiences of cycling, and the epic poems created in workshops, will digitally accompany the installations. You will be able to read, listen and see them through a QR code or website address at each location.

Here’s one we made earlier: Chris Paradox’s poem about Green Horses on the Wall and impossible dreams on The Alton Estate in Wandsworth.

Scan with you phone camera to open the link

There are over 20 million bikes in the UK, but only 6 million of them are ridden on a regular basis. We’re going to transform some of those 14 million that are lying around quietly melting into rust, into icons adorning the buildings and roads of Kent.

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The Greatest Invention of All Time

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‘Painting a bike lets you truly appreciate the perfection of its design‘ Karen Poley, Artistic Director

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They also gave us the chance to meet & talk to lots of people

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So, its 2 coats – a primer and paint – to transform our unused rust bucket from sawdust to star!

As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors, and the first night I even kept it in my bed – John Lennon

After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow – H.G. Wells ‘The Wheels of Chance’

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised the Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me – Emo Philips

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The Installation
My First Bike is on the wall of 60 The Old High St, Folkestone.
As the Poet Paradox says elsewhere, ‘First bikes are born at Christmas,’ and people never forget the excitement of that first bike – the unwrapping, the colour, the speed, the freedom. This installation was so tiny & cute, it felt a real pull to leave it alone on the wall!

Apparently you can fit 20 bikes into 1 car parking space. This is a well used statistic, but is it possible? We decided to find out, as part of one of our residencies and Cycle Recycle, Margate. But, the more bikes we pulled from the workshop, the less possible it looked….

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The Installation
Lovin’ My Bike is on the facade of 7 Tontine St, Folkestone

People have fascinating relationships with their bikes. For some, their bike is a pure convenience, practical and free, getting them from A to B. Others guiltily neglect their bikes, abandoning them in sheds, gardens & bike racks. But for others, it’s a soul mate requiring tender maintenance and attention lavished on each part. Sometimes it’s a love/hate relationship, a torrid affair.

The two BMXs of this installation, of course, epitomise the latter, at least during people’s braver years!

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It is great when we parents at last see the small feet of a trainee cyclist pedalling at speed and the bike launched into independent orbit.  After weeks of sprinting bent double like Groucho Marx doing a runner, we get our backs back. The downside is that the child seat on the parental bike will be empty from now on.  Those companiable times on the same two wheels have reached the end of the road.
Jonathan Sale, Guardian Sat 7 April 2012

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The Installation
On the balcony of Marine Studios, 17 Albert Terrace, Margate.
Two children’s bikes perch on the balcony, facing out to sea, like fledgling birds about to take their first flight.  Many people clearly remember that first magical moment of freedom, pedalling off down the road on first bikes, leaving parents, siblings or friends behind.  A feeling of liberation, ‘almost the closest sensation of flying.’

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When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Installation
Located high up on a wall above the Number One Community Centre, next to Showfields Library in Tunbridge Wells.  Residents were convinced local kids would have removed them before the end of the night, but they didn’t and this was one of the most viewed pages of the project.

‘When you’re racing its like being in the cavalry… you attack people, you’re swinging in & out of corners, you’re climbing, you’re going down through descents, its a real cavalier sport. A fabulous feeling’

The Installation
Sevenoaks district hosted the Paralympic Road Cycling Events, so it seemed only fitting the installation focused on racing.

Four bikes on the Budgens facade, Whitstable High Street. They loved the bikes so much they wanted to keep them there!

Cycling means Green
And pleasant lands, where shiny happy people hold up their hands
Proclaiming ‘Earth. Air. Fire. Water.
We’re your biggest fans!’

Cycling means Speed
Couriers unlock gridlock zip whizzing from A to B to Z
While Olympians, tourers and teens meet a deep genetic need

Cycling meands Fitness
Lung bursting, calorie burning, thigh sapping, cardio maxing
figure hugging, good looking, god/goddess on two wheels

Cycling means Adventure
Where do you want to go today? ‘Far far away’
London to Brighton? Torquay to Timbuktu?
Remember to pack your passport, your bike and you

Cycling means Freedom
Bus fare, train fair, petrol costs, road tax, failed your M.O.T.
Wind in your hair, before you know it, you’re there
And it was absolutely free

Cycling means Meditation
In the life of a cyclist, lie the cycles of life and death
Needing eyes in the back of the head,
Completely centred in the now, when all around are seeing red

Cycling means Fun
Mum Dad daughter son
laughing along the lanes of some little hampton
mates having a lark, BMXers in the park
empty road nightriders after dark
all with still spinning wheels and last laughing hearts

by Chris Paradox
developed following a poetry workshop and collaborative session in Margate

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And one of the collaborative poems created in that workshop session

The Seven Wonders of Cycling

Feeling the need for speed
Dreaming the feeling of freedom
As Green as the trees
Setting off on an adventure

Skill, power, exhilaration
Racing through to exhaustion
Each ride a Tour de Somewhere
A training for the next Olympics
Four years to accustom to Brazilian heat

And the steep climb to where Christ prevails
Upon the mountain where Mohammed wails
From where Buddhamind hails
Meditation on wheels, the Now of the road
Fully alive, an enlightened load

Look! Look at me
Fun and Fitness, all for free
Faster than walking, a heart pumping journey
Riding around all day, & still plenty of energy

The wondrous turning of the wheel of life
In the central park of paradise
Where friends can meet and ride to their liking
Oh how I love the wonders of cycling

Collaboratively composed by:
Hannah Willis
Nicole Turrell
Liz Mincer
Peter Mincer
David Mincer
Kelly Veasey
David Robert
Karen P
Ray Gibson
Chris Paradox

Here’s a couple of the group poems created during the workshop at Thanet Cycle Recycle in Margate, from which The Seven Wonders of Cycling emerged.

Click here to listen: I flew out of my flat urgently, And into a south westerly wind

Click here to listen: Flying through the streets, Free as a bird

A bicycle does get you there and more… And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive.  Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal.  And getting there is all the fun – Bill Emerson

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