The Hythe Ferry and Ticket

Users of the Hythe Ferry Adult Ten Journey Ticket will notice that it has now changed. 

In fact what simply looks like a ticket is also part of an interactive public artwork called You Are the Journey created by two local artists called Barber & Webb.

It is part of an Art Plus 06 Award Scheme for art in public places, supported by Arts Council England and SEEDA (South East England Development Agency).

You Are the Journey will draw a series of contemporary social portraits of the unique community that use the Hythe ferry. As part of You Are the Journey Barber & Webb would like passengers to write directly onto their ticket in the small box provided and when the ticket is used up, hand it in to the boat crew as usual.

Barber & Webb are interested in the lives behind the people and the small stories they can tell about their journey across Southampton Water.

For instance, what do they see around them? What are their memories of this route? Are they feeling nostalgic, wistful or poetic? What are they reading on the train? Are they cold?

Or are they just tired from over work? Where are they going? How long have they been making this trip?

Barber and Webb Explain
“While travelling on the Hythe ferry and pier train journey we feel as if we are a part of living history, a continuous unbroken line since the journey began.

We enjoy the visual and sensory textures the journey provides, like the way the yellow oily light flickers on the pier train during the cold winter months, the worn wooden benches that have carried so many people before us.

However the journey is not simply about sentiment and nostalgia but a functioning train and ferry journey that enables a small community to travel closely and intimately together towards the city.

There is a strong sense of camaraderie aboard and you often find people spontaneously talking to someone else or someone talking to you.

Looking out of the window we can see the colour of Southampton Water change during different times of day, sometimes with the added joy of an enormous ocean liner passing by.

Coming back we are warmed by the site of Fawley Oil Refinery in the distance as it signals our nearness to home”

Every response will be valued, as each received ticket will literally form the main body of the work.

Some of the lines of text will be printed onto a new batch of tickets in the New Year to form a poetic stream of words where the punch holes will be placed. 

All of the Adult Ten Journey Ticket contributions will become part of the You Are the Journey interactive public art work, which Barber & Webb hope to exhibit at Southampton Town Quay.

The project will run for approximately a 12 months. White Horse Ferries Limited enthusistically support the development of this project and possibly for the first time ever have enabled an artwork to be developed on the front of a ticket.

For more information please visit: www.artscouncil.org.uk/artplusawards

Do not hesitate to contact Barber & Webb if you require more information or images on:-
E-mail: claire_barber@hotmail.com