Fleet is a new work by Dmitri Galitzine comprising of a website and a large scale photo- graphic installation to be unveiled as part of his upcoming exhibition at the Cob Gallery, God Save the Village Green.
Galitzine has collated an archive of over three thousand photographs, all of which are taken by a community of haulage vehicle enthusiasts called Stobart Spotters.
Their aims are to sight, record and photograph Eddie Stobart haulage vehicles as they distribute goods around the UK and Europe.
Galitzine created a website which invites spotters to upload their photographs of specfific ve- hicles to a fleet list.
The website has brought together hundreds of spotters, all of whom are working with Galizine to collate a comprehensive archive of the fleet of 2011, the year that Edward Stobart died. This will consist of over three thousand photographs, all of which will be printed to postcard size and displayed in one immersive installation.
The website started as a tool in which to easily gather a huge number of images, but it has had a great effect on the spotter community, who are treating like an online archive or gal- lery. The website has gathered huge momentum and over two thousand photographs were published online in a matter of weeks. Certain spotters have even taken on the task of track- ing down specific vehicles in order to fill in the gaps in the fleet list.
“I was interested in understanding how a haulage company could captivate a nation. There is a romance attached to the Eddie Stobart brand that engages people from childhood. Much of this can be accredited to anthropomorphosis: all of the trucks carry an individual girl’s name. I think that there is a problem inherent when art deals with cultural oddities like this one in a voyeuristic or touristic way. The success of Fleet is its ability to have had an impact on the very subculture it calls into question.”
The Cob Gallery, 205 Royal College St, London, NW1 0SG www.cobgallery.com
