Barnum (2001)
34 35mm slide transparencies
Re-enactment along route of P.T.Barnum publicity stunt outside The American Museum, using bricks from Manchester's Little Ireland.




In 1842 Friedrich Engels published ‘The Condition of the Working-Class in England’ - a study largely based on empirical research walking through
the slum streets of Little Ireland in Manchester. At that time P.T. Barnum’s American Museum (on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street) was at
the height of its popularity and with a per capita turnover ten times that of contemporary Disneyland…

In one oblique publicity stunt, Barnum sent a man into the street outside the museum, carrying with him two bricks. The man was instructed to walk
around the intersection outside the American Museum: placing one brick on the ground; then the other 20 feet away; then returning back to carry
the first brick a further 20 feet past the second; and continuing thus round the intersection until he returned through the museum doors. He was
then to carry on the routine past each exhibit before exiting via the back door and starting again till told otherwise.

The bricks in this November 2000 recreation of that act were taken from what’s left of Little Ireland to the site of the lost museum.