Iris Hansen - "Re-aiguillage"

The project “Re-Aiguillage” looks closely at an area of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, specifically at the border town of Clones.

Alpha Tanks, is a metal tank manufacturing factory that was established in Clones, County Monaghan in 2004. The 60,000 square feet of factory space is located on the former site of Clones’ iconic train station. Inaugurated in 1858 and used for almost a hundred years before its closure, Clones’ train station was a pivotal element of the town’s economic and social fabric. It allowed various trades to blossom such as linen lace weaving, and opened the doors to a wide array of jobs for the locals, from engineers, to train drivers, and switchmen… After its closure in 1957, some buildings that constituted the station were destroyed, to the sorrow of some, such as Patty, one of the current workers at Alpha Tanks who shared his regrets for the main train station: “it is a shame, she was a beauty”. In the last 15 years, Alpha Tanks has taken over the space, constructing new corrugated metal and concrete buildings, in and around the old station’s remains, composing a utilitarian and functional space through an alternative arrangement of old and new. One of the major elements that has withstood these changes is the semi-circular building that was constructed around a railway engine turntable, one of only 5 in Ireland, in which an iconic but somewhat forgotten structural element is found, the Belfast truss

Map of Ireland, highlighting the border, the counties, the topography and the location of Clones

Plan of Clones, Monaghan, highlighting the Alpha Tanks factory

Abstract from he catalogue

This small publication is Alpha Tanks’ anti-catalogue. Through moments and landscapes shot on 35mm film on the 30th and 31st of October 2019, these photographs, as opposed to focusing on the factory’s manufacturing services and products, investigate the theatre of atmospheres found at the factory.

Location of the intervention on the site of the Alpha Tanks factory

The Alternative Metal Fabrication School

The ‘craft’ of metal fabrication follows a universal set of techniques and rules, and what is produced at Alpha Tanks travels beyond Ireland and the United kingdom’s borders, throughout Europe. Based on these principles, ‘universal’ and ‘re-use/ adaptation’, the metal fabrication school is an alternative postgraduate school that will investigate metal, its structures, uses and processes, as well as construction and fabrication techniques. The starting point of the curriculum is based on recycling and deconstructing metal structures to emphasize the approach of fabricating for multiple lifecycles. In addition to the alternative metal fabrication school, the intervention proposes a new space for the Alpha Tanks offices, to allow the people in charge of the factory’s administration to move from a pre-fabricated container to a space in between the factory’s production grounds and the new fabrication school.