please empty your brain below
Despite seeing Three Mills from the tube many, many times, this was my first visit there. Won't be my last. many thanks for bringing this to our attention
I rather get the impression that, despite Pudding Mill Lane being close to the start they'd want you to completely ignore that as there were no signs from there and the first one I found was right by the first exhibit in Three Mills Park. No signs from there to the House Mill, which is indefinitely closed for renovations so no chance to see the Bill Viola for who knows how long. A more cruel man than I might conjecture that two days of a minor art festival with no real promotion brought them too many visitors to handle, perhaps in double figures, but I'm above that.
dg writes: The House Mill had more than 200 visitors over the first weekend, which they say they coped with.
Couldn't find the Piotr Uklanski but, due to no signage and not knowing the area I ended up walking a mile down the Limehouse branch of the river before realising my mistake. I'm not sure whether there was a diversion or whether they were just expecting people to make one up for themselves. I get the impression also that they were expecting people to walk this from south to north rather than north to south. Certainly the signage was only adequate if you knew the area well (say, if you were part of the team that put the sculptures in place for example). The problem with the signs were that they were mostly not put where they would be useful, at junctions where you'd have a choice of direction, but rather along straight paths where the only choice was to keep going or turn back.
I found the Abigail Fallis, which I liked, and the Damien Hirst, which was meh. Found my way out of Cody Dock and to the DLR for the journey down to Royal Victoria. By this point I was mentally rewriting the scene from the start of HHGTTG between Arthur and Mr Prosser to the current situation, ("You haven't actually gone out of your way to draw people's attention to the sculptures have you, like actually telling anybody or anything, or making sure they were there?")
The James Balmforth is not at the Victoria Basin. The laminated sheet for planning permission was still forlornly sticking out of the decking where it is supposed to go.
On the other side of the river I only found the Thomson and Craighead sign and the Gormley though, as you say, that's been there for years. Looking at your gallery I realise I'd walked straight past 'A Slice of Reality' though there was a sign with no insert nearby, which was why I didn't realise it.
So, while it was an interesting walk round a part of the city I've not seen much of before, as an art trail it's rather a failure. And as the website is still promising updates on the 26th of May it rather suggests no-one's working on it any more.
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