20 Slideshows
As well as the main entrance to Ruskin Park we see the imposing tower of the World Headquarters of the Salvation Army and Denmark Hill Station. The latter burned down in 1980 and was rebuilt in 1984.
As so often in 20 Sites no pattern or plan is discernible in the changes made to things or their positioning or even their existence. A bench will move here and there, and will disappear altogether to come back again after a while: if indeed 20 Sites is seen as a microcosm of the nation as a whole then an awful lot of people, especially those working for the municipality, are involved in totally random and arbitrary activity. They seem to cancel out each other's work in a long dance of job protection. It is difficult otherwise (apart from the signals-to-aliens theory) to account for the preparation of a flower bed in 1973 whose display reaches its peak in 1975, goes to seed in 1976, is erased in 1977 to remain more and more vestigially visible until in 1987, when, as if to mark the tenth anniversary of its abandonment, a Christmas tree is planted (by chance or artistry) dead centre of its virtually invisible circle. It made little progress in 1989 and still looks sketchy in 1992.
The general whimsicality of this site is echoed in the people entering the park who are usually in a genial mood.
The introduction of a leaning lamp-post introduces another motif that is taken up elsewhere as in Site 18.