The initial thinking centred on the potential to alter a familiar space, to explore the potential of the awkwardness of the Close space as a site for an artwork or intervention.

Starting out with Electric Theatre Workshops’ suggestion for wallpapering the closes of Dumfries, to domesticate these in-between spaces, a floral pattern stretched and expanded to fill the space.

The notion of these closes spaces as both public and private, of uncertain ownership…

The close space is both a shortcut, a very human space in-between town planning – unofficial, un-named but also a part of the local fabric of the town-space, and an uncertain, unsocial space – there is no place here for pausing, for gathering, for looking closer.

These were some of the issues Close Enough set out to examine closer.

In the end up, the Close Enough project became a series of test pieces in the space – and it’s expected that this will continue. The space doesn’t yet feel resolved; the full potential of the space has not yet been reached.

The UV paint was borne out of a grudge held against the anti-youth buzzers beneath the Lore Burne Centre that ring out into the night, echoing in sections of the High Street – and still giving me a headache.

It’s all process, with little finite answers yet. But it’s a beginning.