Imagining St Mary Magdalene's

Organ Video

2005-08-17T15:21:00.000+01:00

"btw got emailed some small mob.videoclips from Geoff Hautman (Lisas friend) - for the blog"

- received via email from Per Platou this lunchtime. They are very small (under 100k) but nicely shot and convey the atmosphere really well.

Cheers Geoff!

Per's Organ

Per's Organ #2

"Imagining St Mary Magdalene's" Weekend

2005-08-08T07:07:00.000+01:00

This image is one of my favourites from the entire project - it is the result of the printer running out of ink, creating a beautiful accident. (Click to see large)

I am still reflecting upon the impact this art project has had both upon those of us immediately involved in it, the artists, the park users, the churchgoers, the asylum group, and on the people who came from far and wide to see and hear and join in.

We had almost entirely good responses from local people, as well as people who had come specially to Islington.

The overall effect seemed to be to cause people to stop and look and wonder. Val, walking her dog, said to me on Saturday evening, "I keep intending to go home but I am still finding things to look at."

An enthusiastic young man I've never met came up to me and asked me who was responsible for this as it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever experienced.

I assumed he meant the experience of seeing the park and church and tombs lit up, voices, bells, speech, music, images and figures adorning the gardens, so I introduced him to the artists, Per Platou and Amanda Steggell from Motherboard, Lisa Muten, Ulf Knudsen, and my colleague in Funk, who was hugely important to the success of the event, Mark Crook.

The combination of a week of art, food, dance, music, and a sculpture which seemed specifically made for them seemed to have a greatly calming effect on the resident drinkers.

I realised that, drunk or sober, believer true or not, what most people here suffer from is boredom, and by alleviating that, the problems associated with this challenging urban space diminish.

Ulf's Piano

2005-08-05T23:20:00.000+01:00

47MB MP3 file of the piano piece Ulf played.

Amanda's Window

2005-08-04T22:43:00.000+01:00

Amanda's 35MB MP4 movie of the window projection.

St Mary Magdalene Elegy

2005-08-03T22:05:00.000+01:00

Here is the audio "St MaryMagdalene Elegy" (46MB MP3 file) which Per composed from donated audio that London artists have uploaded to the website, recorded voices from the local area, the St Mary Magadelene bells, and other found sounds from the week-long project.

On the night this piece was distributed through the church and gardens via walkie-talkie, and accompanied by piano and organ.

Interactions

2005-07-31T16:46:00.000+01:00

Most of the pictures remained for the duration even with no special effort made to safeguard them.

Some of the pictures were completely removed.

I am certain that one particular group of regular parks users were so pleased with the picture showing themselves, that it was very carefully taken down and is now decorating some local interior.

It would be untrue to say that the entire project was without criticism, however.

One cheeky image of her smiling young daughter Metta, which came from Mia Manners who sent in a lot of pictures, was ripped off by someone and then replaced very carefully by someone who decided that they liked it, I guess.

This picture of a smiling man, which was sent in and displayed in the park, was removed, written upon, and stuck back up in a different, more prominent place. I don't know why this picture out of over 40 displayed was deemed particularly worthy of comment.

Now that's interaction...

Dan's Man (Email)

2005-07-31T15:57:00.000+01:00

Hey dude, how did it go?

I'm sending you a picture I took... I love this one.

cheers
Dan

This email from Dan Powell arrived Sunday.

Dan contributed to the audio as well as taking part on Saturday.

Sunday Gallery

2005-07-31T11:57:00.000+01:00

The park became a gallery for the weekend as the weather finally warmed up.

Markus, who has helped us a lot with the art project, took the opportunity to involve the church.

On Sunday after the service, the church held an open-air shared lunch, and everybody who wanted food was fed. There must have been 75 people, including a group of missionary young americans and the combined congregations of St Mary Magdalene's and St David's. See more pictures here.

Watching an energetic youth group dancing, Ann my neighbour said to me, "I've been here 6 years and I've never seen anything like this! Isn't it great?"

Can Man Grows

2005-07-31T10:14:00.000+01:00

Can Man was half-full already by Sunday morning, taking shape on the steps of the church.

When Glendales arrived for their Sunday clear up, this young man kindly assisted the project by filling him.

I found this newspaper placed carefully on the ground all around the mound at the Liverpool Road end of the park.

I was very impressed - someone had responded to the invitation to make art by improvising an installation with found materials.

Or had a newspaper simply not been binned properly, and was the placement just an example of John Cage-style random beauty? Either way, I was still impressed.

As I photographed the results, which I found quite pleasing, a gentle wind blew the pages further across the lawns.

I began to suspect the garden itself was playing along.

Victorian Return

2005-07-30T22:12:00.000+01:00

Our urban garden evening art activities were a huge contrast to the world of the Holloway Road, which for a change, instead of dominating and drowning out, was being drawn inside.

It is amazing what lighting and costume can do to suggest and evoke. Petronella Carter, a performing artist who grew up near Highbury Fields, dressed in a Victorian mourning costume, with cape, gloves, veil, and even the correct lace-up boots so that she walked correctly.

As Petronella and Alev moved around, Mark was acting as both lighting director and mobile sound source, as he was carry one of the walkie-talkies. Per also moved around the space with another. It was really unusual to have both mobile and fixed sound sources, and then to move around the large space.

Ulf started to play piano in the church, and this became one of the sounds in the live mix. Per played the organ. The voices of the different languages spoke intimately, and the eight bells rang out all over. I have never experienced sound quite like it.

As the two figures moved around the outside of the church in the darkness, it really was as if the Victorian dead had come to join us, to bless us with their presence.

We had somehow got to that magic place where suspension of disbelief had spontaneously started to happen.

This graceful promenading had a Pre-Raphaelite feel, the spirit of the coming age when this place came into being almost 200 years ago.

Above us, still moving and glowing with vivid colour, Amanda's window projections shone like a spiritual beacon in the filled darkness.

Angel

2005-07-30T21:52:00.000+01:00

There used to be angels painted either side of the big arch on the inside walls of the Chapel of Ease. Inside the modern church is a print showing these angels smiling down and welcoming believers to paradise.

It must have been a reassuring sight to the bereaved, seeing the heavenly host there to escort their deceased loved ones to a better place.

Flying

2005-07-30T21:19:00.000+01:00

You can tell Amanda comes from a dance background from the way she treats moving visuals. She so enjoys operating the images manually, recording sequences of interaction and dissolving movement.

In this illuminated window she is using various images of flight, including a spiraling female figure that could be Mary, flying pigs, and medieval cherubs.

The colours dance and shine in the window in a fascinating, attractive, almost hypnotic manner, turning plain into stained glass, stillness into movement.

The church lighting in the other windows lit up the building and surrounding gardens, which drew people to the movement and colour of Amanda's centrepiece.

Dusk Reveals

2005-07-30T20:38:00.000+01:00

On Saturday evening, people came into the dark park to watch the projections and the performance art, and listen to the audio and improvised music in the church.

The months of research, meetings, form-filling, and the week's preparations and collaborations came together on one dark, cold July night.

Figurines

2005-07-30T20:30:00.000+01:00

The park is usually cleared and closed at dusk. There are ten to fifteen people who would then normally go elsewhere, perhaps go and sit on the benches outside on the Holloway Road. This evening, they stayed to watch, chat, and drink Rabah's excellent coffee, and were joined by the art-viewing public.

In twilight, the small figures seemed to animate themselves. Many were observed with interest by passers-by over the weekend, some being picked up for closer inspection and replaced carefully.

Coffee and Crêpes

2005-07-30T18:30:00.000+01:00

It was dark, cold, and a tad windy as the evening arrived, with the odd spot of rain threatening more - not the best conditions for an summer event in a park. I was seriously worried absolutely nobody would show up.

People did come however, from the church and elsewhere. I was pleased that some local people were there - I spent some time chatting with a woman whose flat like mine looks out onto the park. Rabah made coffee and crêpes and people gravitated around him. People "mixed", drank coffee and ate, watching the projections brighten and take shape in the darkening evening.

Saturday Afternoon Modelling

2005-07-30T14:30:00.000+01:00

Lisa arrived in the afternoon and began to remake her figurines. Some of them we recovered from Glendales, and those which were not too badly damaged she remodelled. Others were turned into raw materials once again for new figures. This curious squirrel, who clearly considered the tomb area his territory, could not work out whether plasticine was edible or not.

During the afternoon, Lisa was joined by ten or so people, known and unknown, who saw what she was doing and industriously began to make model figures.

It was nice to see how everyone took each character seriously and constructed them as if engaged in different activities. Interesting also how the results became so inventive the more everyone got into it and the activity developed. I spotted figures reading, sleeping, meditating, dancing, drinking, kissing, breast-feeding, listening to the radio...

Kenny and the Marquee

2005-07-30T12:28:00.000+01:00

The marquee was a simple ten-by-twenty with three sides, to contain Rabah, a coffee maker, a hotplate and a projector.

Art In The Park

2005-07-30T10:23:00.000+01:00

This morning first thing I went and picked up two prints from Hanway Print Centre on Essex Road. Charles was extremely helpful on Friday afternoon and sorted us out with two large prints at late notice, for the front and back of the park, one by Matthew Griffiths and one by Fred Ahmet, my neighbour. Thanks very much.

His illustration is so perfect for this art project that it has pride of place at the front, opposite Cycle Surgery on the Holloway Road, temporarily replacing the WELCOME sign.

This is Alev Ahmet, who has just finished a course in performance. She is going to be an angel for us later this evening, wearing angel wings supplied by local business The Costume Studio.

Art, Technology, Community

2005-07-29T23:05:00.000+01:00

Friday evening was very long indeed.

Amanda finished making her colourful projections in the central window, which had been attracting passers-by all week to stare transfixed through the railings.

Our remaining tasks were to light the church and grounds, and to install the audio.

We lit both sides of the church, picking out the tall late Regency windows with their classical curves, using green at the front and red at the back, which gave a great view through the building, revealing the scale of the interior.

We distributed all-weather lamps among the tombs and bushes, which threw up long shadows onto the wall of the church and created a magical, other-worldly atmosphere.

Elegy

2005-07-29T21:48:00.000+01:00

Per was working hard all week on the audio content, in which he incorporated the voices of local people, the asylum group, the sound of the church bells recorded on Wednesday, and the musical sounds that London artists Andrew Lagowski and Dan Powell had uploaded for us to use.

The ingenious way Per designed the audio to be distributed via 12 walkie-talkies working on different channels required reprogramming the walkie-talkie system and keeping the receivers open so that synchronised audio streams could be sent to them, and so Friday night for Mark and Per was a long period of much head-scratching, some moments of despair as the system stuttered and suffered from interference, and a triumph of patience and method as everything finally fell into place and started to work as planned.

There was something really lovely about taking this symbol of authority and power and using it to show the humanity and vulnerability of people in this place of sanctuary.

Drunk on the Steps

2005-07-29T15:33:00.000+01:00

One of the problems of St Mary Magdalene Gardens is that it attracts a lot of drinkers, many harmless, but some out of control and rather alarming if not directly dangerous. On Friday, Per spent at least 20 minutes talking to a guy with a crutch (that I had secretly christened Wuhwah Man) who had turned up on the steps, barely able to say anything other than "wuh" or "wah".

The man insisted on pulling himself up to the glass door at the top, and waving weakly at people who were going in and out of the church to take or run English lessons, to make food parcels, or to run the church office.

It was totally impossible to understand what help he required, he was very beaten up, and had obviously at some point some time ago he had been seriously physically and mentally damaged; but Per kept asking him questions. I was hungry, I was ready to go, but Per was taking his time.

After twenty minutes, I realised the other drunk characters who had tolerated and mostly ignored him and who had been rowing among themselves were quietly listening to the exchange. It transpired that the man was Somali, knew Olso and even spoke some Norwegian. Everyone was surprised, he was actually conversing with the guy. Per's patience and persistence brought a moment of sense where previously none had seemed to exist.

I don't know whether the Somali man finally articulated or got the help he needed, but he was gone later that day, and I have not seen him since.

Matthew Griffiths

2005-07-29T13:30:00.000+01:00

Matthew Griffiths, "Harmonica" Matt, as he calls himself, resident of Caledonian Road, has contributed to this project in several ways.

He drew an excellent sketch of a man playing harmonica, which was displayed opposite the school.

Aside from his visual art skill, Matt is National Harmonica Champion of Great Britain (Diatonic) with several other awards for his playing. Matthew dressed as a Victorian gentleman and played acoustically for a couple of hours in the park to passers by during the afternoon.

His imposing form moving around the gardens, much as people promenaded 150 years ago, began to bring something quite joyful to the park, as people did the odd double-take. Matthew kept in character and responded to questions with a playful diginity.

It started to feel like a festival.

Toilets

2005-07-29T13:00:00.000+01:00

Toilets have arrived. Funnily enough, nobody was using them at first and I had to point out to the drinkers in the park that they might prefer them to using the bushes.

Later all three cubicles were being rather drunkenly rocked back and forth by the occupants in apparent celebration at having somewhere private to ablute. I rapped on the door and told them to be quiet or they would be asked to leave, with absolutely no authority to do so I hasten to add, and the noises stopped. No further action was required, and with the exception of some escaped toilet roll which I cleared up, they were kept in good order.

As somebody pointed out to me, on the new maps of Islington, toilets are still show as being in this space, but the brick toilet was demolished over ten years ago. It certainly improved the park for the duration. The smell of urine in places is very bad and several times I have found human faeces. It was a pleasure to give the park a reason to rejoin civilisation in this way.

Ulf Knudsen

2005-07-29T10:51:00.000+01:00

Artist and musician Ulf Knudsen travelled from Norway to take part in this event, and as he said, to show his solidarity for London after the recent bombing. He came wearing a t-shirt saying "Do Not Be Afraid" in Norwegian.

Can Man

2005-07-29T10:50:00.000+01:00

We found Can Man in the tombs around the back of the church.

He looked a little bit flat, rather as if someone had got him drunk and led him astray.

We righted him and restored him to the steps, where he carried on filling up and taking shape.

Art Project "Tidied Up"

2005-07-29T08:53:00.000+01:00

It's going well. Amanda's flying figures have been lighting up the church window. We've very busy preparing the church and gardens for the weekend event. However,
this morning 35-plus plasticine figures and several prints had (with five missed exceptions) completely gone, along with the tree-dressing from earlier in the week and the high visibility spiral tree-barrier erected last night. We were dismayed to say the least.

They were removed mistakenly by GLENDALES who said they thought it was rubbish. Not sure if this was meant as art criticism.

A few hours later, two guys in a truck, looking pretty embarassed, brought some of it back.

Lisa, who is to start at Archway art school Byam Shaw in the autumn, was magnanamous about the frustrating of 30 hours making and installing the sculpture and says she will make some more for this weekend's event. She was amazed that the small figures survived the terrible recent weather, the unseasonable wind and rain. With one or two noble exceptions, few have been removed or squashed, although plenty have had close inspection from park users. People seem to find them fascinating, and we have had good comments.

If you have seen the figures, please leave a comment and tell us your reaction.

We also made Can Man, a hollow chicken wire receptacle for the recycling of cans, and left it by the church steps. It started to fill with cans. Let's see how long he lasts!

St Mary Magdalene's Bells

2005-07-28T11:44:00.000+01:00

Two shots from the video we shot last night. Stills don't really show the drama of the moving mechanisms and the great mass of metal, but over the weekend we will use this footage.

Lights, Action, Yoghurt

2005-07-28T09:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we took delivery of most of the equipment we are using for the weekend, including walkie-talkies, lights, and yoghurt. I learned something new about yoghurt from Amanda - it is a non-invasive, temporary and easy-to-remove way of making window glass semi-transparent for back-projection.

Per met with some of the people from the Asylum group and recorded them speaking in their mother tongues.

The questions Per asked were:

1. Which country do you come from? Please tell me a little bit about your country, the people there and what you miss most (being here in London)

2. Tell me what a typical day in London is like for you, from when you get up until you go to bed.

3. What is your relation to St. Mary Magdalene Church and the park surrounding it. For how long have you been taking classes here? Have you got any particular memories from this space?

4. Can you sing me a little children’s song, lullaby etc. from your own country?

It was quite a moving experience.

We also chatted with Ellen who works in the launderette and who grew up here. She told us great stories about how the local area used to be. This content is part of the work Motherboard are doing here, exploring attitudes and reactions to the place they are in, and also, their memories of the places they no longer inhabit.

Musical artists Andrew Lagwoski and Dan Powell have donated sounds, and Per is mixing these with the vocal recordings to create the audio part of the installation. We are planning to use this both inside the church and outside the garden.

During the evening, Pam Donovan and Ian Feltham helped me to video the bells. It was quite amazing ascending all the way up inside this 200 year old tower, and I had to walk across the internal belfry wooden gantry to place the video camera. I also placed an audio recorder one level down, in the clock room, where the noise would not distort. For this special occasion, we were treated to some really excellent bellringing with a full complement of 8 bells rung by 8 ringers. It is very energetic work requiring stamina and concentration. I can see the appeal (no pun).

The largest bell in the centre of the tower weighs about a ton, and when they are all swinging, they shake the tower considerably! Nonetheless it is not this that is causing the external cracks in the brickwork, said Ian, it's more than likely the proximity to the unpollarded lime trees which are planted close to the church, and their replacement with trees of smaller scale would solve the problem whilst retaining the ecology of the park, he thought.

The weather is pretty bad this last week in July, and so we are adapting our plans somewhat. I am not sure that the tower lighting will be fixable for this weekend as the junction box on the roof is pretty corroded, which is a shame. The bellringers left at 9pm but we worked on until 11.30pm in the church, setting up lights and projections, managing only one blown fuse in the process.

Jonathan Rust, the vicar, passed me this poem, written by Fred Tohill, one of the regular park users, in honour of our art festival.

St. Mary Magdalene's Day

Come one, come all
Attend our garden fest
Believers true or not
Come be our guest.
Our purpose is
To harmonise and bind
With nature
And give solace to the mind.
Some poetry and music
You will hear
With colours of the rainbow
Ever near.
Where flowerbed
Fulfil the earth's display
Be with us on
St. Mary Magdalene's Day.

Fred Tohill. 05

Thats one of the wonderful things about interactive community art - you never know what beauty will turn up.

The Lights Of Holloway Road

2005-07-26T22:56:00.000+01:00

All this city light around the front entrance to the church, and you would hardly know it was there, from this angle looking north. Modern signage, road and vehicle lighting really glares.

Less obvious in these long summer evenings, but at night, once people are gone, the church sits in a pool of darkness.

I think it would be good to restore the building to our local skyline.

It would improve our night environment. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with plastic illuminated shop signs, just that there are a lot nicer things to look at right under our nose, which we can't see because they are being drowned out...

With this in mind, I have been looking into restoring the lights which are on the tower. Fingers crossed - it may just be a matter of new bulbs and a man with a cherry picker and a head for heights. I will keep you updated.

Then this handsome grade 2 listed building will take its place once again as a visible presence on our night time high street.

More Photographs of Spirits

2005-07-26T17:40:00.000+01:00

Lisa Muten has emailed some high definition photos of the sculptures.

Browse the entire series here.

Seven Things About This Project

2005-07-26T00:15:00.000+01:00

Here are seven things about the "Imagining St Mary Magdalene's" project you might like to pass on:

1. "Imagining St Mary Magdalene's" is an art project based in a church garden / public park in Islington, London, UK.

2. Norwegian / British artists Motherboard are here during the last week of July 2005 working with local people, making art in and about the gardens. We want to encourage people to express their feelings thoughts and hopes for this unique space.

3. These include park users, local residents, parishioners of St Mary Magdalene's church, local artists.

4. There has never been anything like this happen in the gardens, or as far as we know, in Islington.

5. Your input is valuable to the project - You can email content, by which we mean words, pictures, or sounds, to mm[at]funk[dot]co[dot]uk or (if you are in the UK) you can text us words, pictures or sounds to 07951 225551. Terms and conditions here.

6. The art event culminates in an exhibition on Saturday 30th July. There will be a small cafe space in the gardens on Saturday afternoon and an audio-visual installation on Saturday evening.

7. On Sunday 31st July, there will be an open-air service and lunch with drama and other activities.

Per and Amanda

2005-07-25T23:28:00.000+01:00

Per, Amanda, Mark and I spent most of the morning "on site" as my local green space has now become, which is an odd feeling, but not a bad one. In fact, despite the fact I am coming down with a cold, it feels positive. I have to say that everyone has been really supportive.

We are planning to light the gardens over the next few days in imaginative ways as part of the work. Here we are discussing throws, lumen, and plug sockets.

We found some great art in the church.

The organ.

I want to play it. Apparently it needs some repair.

It's been a very long day but a good one.

Motherboard in Islington

2005-07-25T14:48:00.000+01:00

Per and Amanda aka Motherboard arrived last night from Norway. This morning we walked around the gardens, measuring things and planning this weekend's exhibition.

We set out a schedule for the week which includes recording the bells on Wednesday evening (thanks to Pam Donovan and Ian Feltham) and working with Matthew Griffiths. Matthew is Diatonic Harmonica Champion of Great Britain, he's a local, a regular church goer and Central Library user. I also met Frank today in the rain in the park, a poet, who has been composing rhyming couplets about our festival.

Posters are up all around the local area including the Central Library, the chemist, the stone masons, the Buddhist centre, the sandwich bar opposite the main entrance, and the Mersey Estate.

Lisa came by at lunch time with some chicken wire for a sculpture, which we put in the crypt. We are to make a sculpture from this. She was amazed that her plasticine figures were all still in place, bar one, which was intact, but which had been moved to the bottom of a another tree.

Nice that people noticed, inspected, but respected the work.

Spirits of the Gardens

2005-07-25T10:21:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening Lisa Muten installed thirty or so small figures in some of the trees in the park. They are between 4 and 10 centimetres high, made of plasticine. She said that she sees them as representing the spirits of the departed who were buried here when it was an active graveyard which more or less ceased in 1856. Some families owned plots with the right to continue to use them, so there was the occasional entombment here right up until the 1930s.

She is going to send me some hi-definition images - meanwhile, here are some images taken with my trusty phone camera.

St Mary Magdalene's Day

2005-07-24T16:18:00.000+01:00

This morning, I inaugurated a week of art in the park by paying homage to one of its oldest residents, a mighty London plane. I was pleased to be able to mark the day with an image taken from Domenico FETI, an Italian painter (b. ca. 1589, Roma, d. 1623, Venezia) of the Repentant Mary Magdalene.

I entered the gardens at 7.15am, just before they opened, and made an offering to the 150 year old tree, and to St Mary, asking them both to bless our week with good art.

A lot of bark is on the ground, following the rain so I used it as a material to make it seem that the bright yellow cloth flowers had somehow emerged "naturally".

I found myself thinking, art is natural...

I was careful not to damage the tree.

Later I went to the church, put up some of the posters advertising the week and left them some invitations to the evening event this Saturday 30th July. I also picked up the keys to the crypt where we will be running the workshops. There are still a few places left - please leave a comment if you are interested.

Looking forward to seeing what arrives via email and phone now that the posters are going up.

Imagining A Blog About An Art Project

2005-07-15T20:00:00.000+01:00

This is such a blog....