Jane Baine from Penzance has assembled an audio archive from the Cactus – a soundscape including reminiscences from staff and tourists – some who've been visiting season after season. She's mastered it on to a retro-style acetate disk and it plays on an ancient gramophone in the corner of the café.
Young photographer Sammy Izri from Bridport has spent the last month capturing portraits of the locals and visitors to The Cactus. His work is displayed on all the tables complementing Jane's stories in sound.
It's a fitting tribute to celebrate and remember the end of a modest but important local institution. It also leads the way to a new future. Not just as the builders turn up with much welcomed investment for Weymouth's infrastructure but through 'B Side' and the Cultural Olympiad, there's real commitment to developing young creative talents.
Overlooking The Cactus is the historic Nothe Fort – an important defence for the area for centuries – and eventually a nuclear bunker in the cold war. For 'B Side' Matt Davies and Karol Kweitek are piloting cutting edge new media installations. Matt has found a way to record the perimeter fence of the fort. A special microphone connected to the fence senses the resonance in the cables as it constantly changes according to the wind and rain. Matt's work allows you to 'hear' the weather around the fort.
Karol is experimenting with a live three dimensional camera allowing visitors to search the panoramic views across Weymouth Bay. If successful he hopes to return with a permanent installation well before 2012 – and I have to say it would be a great place to watch Olympic and Parlaympic Sailing.
Back in the heart of Weymouth, the town is buzzing with events and displays for the Open Weekend. There's much talk of last night's 'Veles a Vents' (wind and sales) spectacular from Xarxa Teatre. The Mulberry centre has a row of garden sheds cunningly disguised as beach huts, and each one offers a viewing gallery for the work of local teenage film-makers.
At Bewers Quay Jason Hirons and Kizzy Collins are showing off the results of a month’s beach combing. They visited fifty beaches in the South West of England and collected samples of sand from the high water mark. But sand is sand – no? No - meticulously archived and displayed below a huge projection of the English Channel lapping on to the shore, it makes an arresting demonstration of just how beautifully varied the regional coastline is.
In a couple of hours I could only sample a few of the many events, displays and installations that Weymouth and Portland have contributed to the 2012 Open Weekend. It bodes well for the creative as well as the physical development of the region in the four years up to 2012.
Now pass the salt please – just time for another chip butty in The Cactus….
