Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Places I want to visit: Kizhi Island
One of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen - an ancient wooden church on an Island not far from St Petersburg. The Church of the Transfiguration uses traditional Russian building methods - there are not even any nails, just pegs of wood...
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Gypsy bears
So inspired by ther wonderful photo in my previous post I decided to write an entry on Ursari - a branch of Roma people who traditionally trained bears. The young gypsy boy in Budapest obviously took it to another level, but the tradition goes back to the 12th century. A significant number joined circuses, but it is a distinct culture rather than a simple sideshow act. The term Ursari can also refer to a branch of traditional Roma language.
The Ursari tamed the bears by capturing them in their youth and rendering them harmless. However this obviously entailed some cruel techniques such as burning their paws in time to music, as well as the use of iron rods and nose rings. They were the focus of early animal rights advocates in the 1920s, but it was the repressive measures of the Romanian government in the early stages of WWII that was the first thing to really clamp down on the practice. But the legislation of the communist regime, whilst restrictive, protected the Ursari. It was not until the fall of communism that they were really persecuted, with mass arson attacks on Ursari settlements. However especially around the banks of the Black Sea they remained popular entertainment.
Tricks the bears were taught include dancing to the rhythm of a tambourine, walking upright and leaning on canes, but the bear has a greater significance in Ursari culture. They are believed to protect Ursari houses, ensure fertility and chase away evil spirits. Bear hairs were popular in amulets and bear fat was used to treat rheumatism and skeletal disorders. The Ursari make up a significant amount of the Roma population of Romania, Moldova, Serbia and Italy. There is a sometimes seen as separate group in Bulgaria known as Mechtari, or monkey handlers.
However one of the most interesting things I think is the depictions of them in art over the centuries:
The Ursari tamed the bears by capturing them in their youth and rendering them harmless. However this obviously entailed some cruel techniques such as burning their paws in time to music, as well as the use of iron rods and nose rings. They were the focus of early animal rights advocates in the 1920s, but it was the repressive measures of the Romanian government in the early stages of WWII that was the first thing to really clamp down on the practice. But the legislation of the communist regime, whilst restrictive, protected the Ursari. It was not until the fall of communism that they were really persecuted, with mass arson attacks on Ursari settlements. However especially around the banks of the Black Sea they remained popular entertainment.
Tricks the bears were taught include dancing to the rhythm of a tambourine, walking upright and leaning on canes, but the bear has a greater significance in Ursari culture. They are believed to protect Ursari houses, ensure fertility and chase away evil spirits. Bear hairs were popular in amulets and bear fat was used to treat rheumatism and skeletal disorders. The Ursari make up a significant amount of the Roma population of Romania, Moldova, Serbia and Italy. There is a sometimes seen as separate group in Bulgaria known as Mechtari, or monkey handlers.
However one of the most interesting things I think is the depictions of them in art over the centuries:
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Polyphonic singing
When me and William were in Georgia last year we were lucky enough to be taken to see a young mens' choir rehearsing traditional Georgian polyphonic singing. I knew I had wanted to hear it whilst in Tbilisi, as I had heard records and thought it the most extraordinary thing - it genuinely sounded like nothing else, and while in many cultures I can see the links between the folk music with other areas nearby, this seemed almost implausibly unique. A friend of our good friend took us into this old building in the old town, up some twisting stairs and into a corridoor that echoed with the sounds of different groups of boys singing. We were not sure which door to go through as we didn't want to interrupt, but soon scruffy teenagers came out with a grin for a cigarette break and we went into a room. Everyone smiled and we sat on a rickety bench. I looked up at the group of maybe eight teenage boys laughing at us whilst one of them who was about to conduct gave them strict looks. It looked like they were just doing this for a laugh, but then they opened their mouths - it was simply extraordinary. At one point I felt tears come to my eyes in a cliche it was so beautiful... Sadly I don't have a recording of these young men but here is link to a website with a general overview of singing in the different regions and some interesting old recordings.
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Rambo Amadeus
Somewhat of a cult figure in his native Serbia (so I have read rather than hearing from my Serbian pals I have to say...) Rambo Amadeus named himself an absurd paradox which continues throughout his music - sometimes comic, sometimes political, always anti-Milosevic - songs with such Serbian humour in the titles as "Don't happy, be worry". He had a top ten hit with a song he wrote with a Norwegian Journalist where a light house falls in love with an oil platform and a very big hit involving shepherds, both of which I could sadly not find, but here are a couple to introduce you anyway... the second one involves folk dancing robots which I guess can only be a good thing...
You can only buy his stuff on his website
You can only buy his stuff on his website
If a plain old coffin doesn't suit...
...move to Ghana!
The Ga tribe are Christian but still hold onto certain animist beliefs. They believe in a celebration at death and that it is important to bury someone in a coffin shaped as something that represented their life. For a more detailed post go to saharan vibe The coffins really are extraordinary...
The Ga tribe are Christian but still hold onto certain animist beliefs. They believe in a celebration at death and that it is important to bury someone in a coffin shaped as something that represented their life. For a more detailed post go to saharan vibe The coffins really are extraordinary...
Ghosts of the month!
Potentially a new monthly feature... This month:
The Windsor ruins. I have always wanted to do a road trip of ghost towns in the South and hope one day in the not too distant future this dream will be fulfilled, but what appeals to me the most the ruins of old Southern mansions. The windsor ruins are in Mississippi, a state with the most extraordinary dark atmosphere that I love, and I think would feel like entering a lost realm - my favourite atmosphere of all on arriving in a place.
If you're interested in more ghost towns this site is a great resource.
The other contender this month is this great blog of advertising ghosts - the echoes on buildings of things that were once advertised there. And the ghosts so silver is fascinated with memory and place and strongly believed that it is in the ordinary buildings and places in the city where memories are contained - that the city's true history can be found. Buildings have many layers of history and if we only look closely many of them are nearer the surface than we think...
The Windsor ruins. I have always wanted to do a road trip of ghost towns in the South and hope one day in the not too distant future this dream will be fulfilled, but what appeals to me the most the ruins of old Southern mansions. The windsor ruins are in Mississippi, a state with the most extraordinary dark atmosphere that I love, and I think would feel like entering a lost realm - my favourite atmosphere of all on arriving in a place.
If you're interested in more ghost towns this site is a great resource.
The other contender this month is this great blog of advertising ghosts - the echoes on buildings of things that were once advertised there. And the ghosts so silver is fascinated with memory and place and strongly believed that it is in the ordinary buildings and places in the city where memories are contained - that the city's true history can be found. Buildings have many layers of history and if we only look closely many of them are nearer the surface than we think...
I've always wanted a hurdy gurdy...
I grew up loving the sound of a hurdy gurdy - the sinister drones always made it the most atmospheric folk instrument for me - but I'm used to it in the English folk tradition when in fact it is a folk instrument around the world - here is a video of a Russian master doing his hurdy gurdy thing...
Friday, 11 January 2008
A silvery bestiary
I have for along time been interested in medieval maps (see Hereford Mappa Mundi above) and monsters - the hidden creatures in manuscripts and churches that the modern world seems to have forgotten. Why is it that the mosters from Greek myths are so well know throughout the world, yet the monsters that are so much part of our western european mythical heritage are virtually unknown? I have been recently trying to address this with my children's television and book series Map Monsters, but I thought that for today I would just list my favourite few monstrous races.
Blemmyae:
Blemmyaes are basically headless beings with faces in their chests. They often carry a large club and are very muscular and fierce.
Sciopod:
One of my favourites, the Sciopod looks relatively human until you realise he just has one huge foot. However this does anything but hinder them - for some reason in enables them to run very fast (I've always seen it as a bit of a seven league boot equivalent, enabling giant leaps) and it can also be handily used as a parasol - they are often shown in this pose and I like the idea that it somehow recharges them for more leaping - as if there were solar panels on the soles of their feet!
Astomi:
Perhaps the most mystical and enigmatic of all medieval monsters, the Astomi has no mouth and consequently lives off smells. They cannot speak so it has been suggested they were almost telepathic. They are particularly fond of the smell of apples, causing them to be sometimes referred to as "apple smellers". But while nice smells are their bread and butter they can also die if exposed to bad smells... There are other related monsters such as straw drinkers who can only digest liquid food through a straw through a small hole in their face.
Cynocephalus:
Possibly the most fearsome of the monstrous races Cynocephali are also known as Dog-heads, though the head is usually that of a wolf-like creature rather than a pet! They have fiercesome mood swings and are great fighters. The picture I've posted here is particularly interesting as it appears to have been converted to Christianity, bringing me to the point that these creatures often got caught up in Crusade propaganda - it was easy to gain support for the Holy Wars if the infidels were monsters rather than human. Hence how in crusade literature people are often generically referred to as Saracens and Ethiopians. This had not so much to do with where they were from (Ethiopia was a mythical kingdom rather than an exact geographical location), but is sometimes rather a breed of mythical creatures not any less fantastical in the eyes of the average person hearing stories, than a blemmyae of a sciopod! Religion is a complicated issue with medieval monsters as it brings in the issue of physiognomy which at the time meant that if you had not heard the word of god then it was likely you would take on a monstrous form. Your physical appearance could also be changed by where you lived - the climate hugely affecting the four humors that influence how you were as a person, but also location determined whether it was possible for you to be human - for example on old maps, monsters often inhabit the antipodes, as there was supposedly a wall of fire detaching them from the rest of the world and as the word of god couldn't have spread through this, it was thought unlikely that anything human could live beyond it.
Panotii:
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Perhaps the most endearing monster the Panotii has giant ears a bit like an elephant which some thought enabled them to fly. They were quite shy for monsters though and sometimes wrapped their ears around themselves like a blanket. However they were obviously evil in medieval eyes as their giant ears enabled them to hear things from a long distance, and this made them prone to listening to gossip.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Ice cream van music
I have always wanted an ice cream van. Not for the endless supply of ice cream, or for the fact that their ice cream is the sort of squirty soft stuff I was never allowed as it was somehow more artificial, but because of the idea of a vehicle that played music that made me feel like I was entering a weird realm. That is what ice cream van music does. It's like a private music box moment on a public scale. You hear it, but if you don't hurry or look in the right direction you might miss it and it will disappear, leaving only an echo lilting around your street - a hint of a different place where it might have gone and you could have gone with it. I grew up in the wilds of Somerset where we never had an ice cream van, so I associated them with mythic-feeling memories of seaside holidays in Cornwall. I remember when I was 14 my boyfriend lived in the centre of a town and I heard an ice cream van outside his house one day - I was amazed they strayed so far from the sea! But they do, and when they do, they take on a whole new atmosphere - kind of like the Pied Piper of the inner-city vehicle world, they call out to local kids. I lived on Brick Lane for a while and our local ice cream van played the teddy bears picnic (you can buy a cd of said tune here but watch out for the sinister voiceover on the sample files). Each day me and my flat mates would hear it calling, and the innocent children's song suddenly had creepy undertones of come hither children and we will lead you to a world far from here. This might sound ridiculous to you, but we never saw this mythical van, just heard it every day calling out, luring people in...
Anyway on a lighter note, for those who want it, click here to read a paper on the history of ice cream vans. There is also a good wfmu blog entry on the subject.
If you, like me, want to buy one, then click here
There is also a flickr group
But beware... they might sound pretty, but who knows where you will end up... Actually I wish I had a photo of what I once saw out of the window of a train in South London - it was what can only be described as an ice cream van graveyard - lots of them quietly rusting back to nature as plants twisted round them in a patch of abandoned city greenery...
World's Fairs
So this is one of my pet obsessions - ever since I was young and I discovered the fabulous dinosaurs at Crystal Palace Park in South London and realised that they were part of a grand festival which also included, well, a crystal palace housing newly discovered wonders of the world. What has happened to the days when structures were designed purely to celebrate the innovation and variety of what the future has to hold (and no the millenium dome does NOT count)? The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Unisphere in New York in '64 - all were the result of world's fairs. On said subject here is a great little film about the Unisphere with wonderful '60s graphics:
For a general intro to the 1964 world's fair this film "To the Fair" is great:
One of my favourite things from this particular world's fair is the Futurama 2 exhibit by Ford General motors - space age vehicles and imaginary cities galore! If only they actually built these places... but the future never turns out as you expect it...
As an aside on the future as we may or may not expect it, here is a great and in places accurate short film from the 1930s on future fashions in the year 2000 Thanks to Fed by Birds for the tip off on that one.
Caucasian Cowboys
Having always been obsessed with Georgia (the country not the state) and having a love for all things old Wild American West, to discover that many of Buffalo Bill's "Cossacks" were in fact Georgians (Cossacks tend to be from further north around the Southern Steppe, though one can become a Cossack - it is arguably an endurance lifestyle and state of mind more than a geographical race). Needless to say the Georgians have picked up on this, and this great website tells you all about it and contains wonderful old photos.
Of Russian children's dreams
So it's a new year and whilst this blog was primarily set up to function as the news/diary section of my website I have decided to also use it as a more conventional blog to post the things that interest me and albeit sometimes in a random way influence my work.
I have never been to Russia but have a good friend I have written to for a long time in Moscow. Recently we were talking about memory and how certain seemingly inconsequential things you have forgotten in your childhood suddenly come back to you, maybe even triggered by something as simple as a smell or a sound, and now these objects, whether a book or a TV show, seem to represent so much more - that they now somehow contain the memories that surrounded them - that they are the key to unlocking an atmosphere or a state of mind. I am in love with classic children's books for this very reason - for me it is always The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge that does it every time - the small door she crawls through to her magical bedroom, the giant dog she can ride which is probably a lion and her friend Robin who lives in caves and trees. My friend was kind enough to compile a youtube list of Russian cartoons that have this effect on her. Some are naive and dreamlike, others psychedelic and truly surreal. Here is one that I really enjoyed with singing creatures, a Tsarist castle complete with egg wielding monarch and a singer songwriting drifter:
The list got more and more surreal. In this country my generation often jokes how programmes like The Magic Roundabout were obviously made by people taking a lot of drugs, but this cartoon takes LSD animation to a whole other level...
I was lucky as a child as Dad ran the first British satellite TV channel for kids in the '80s and got sent lots of amazing cartoons from all round the world - many of which he bought and were shown for the first and sadly the last time in this country... My favourite was a Czech series about a little mole (I think how the makers were more concerned with telling the story rather than the constraints of conventional timekeeping, therefore making each episode a different length, could be why it didn't make it elsewhere). Watching it now it's extraordinary how beautiful it is and in a bizarre way restores your faith in humanity. This is a grand statement I know, but watch and see what you think...
I have never been to Russia but have a good friend I have written to for a long time in Moscow. Recently we were talking about memory and how certain seemingly inconsequential things you have forgotten in your childhood suddenly come back to you, maybe even triggered by something as simple as a smell or a sound, and now these objects, whether a book or a TV show, seem to represent so much more - that they now somehow contain the memories that surrounded them - that they are the key to unlocking an atmosphere or a state of mind. I am in love with classic children's books for this very reason - for me it is always The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge that does it every time - the small door she crawls through to her magical bedroom, the giant dog she can ride which is probably a lion and her friend Robin who lives in caves and trees. My friend was kind enough to compile a youtube list of Russian cartoons that have this effect on her. Some are naive and dreamlike, others psychedelic and truly surreal. Here is one that I really enjoyed with singing creatures, a Tsarist castle complete with egg wielding monarch and a singer songwriting drifter:
The list got more and more surreal. In this country my generation often jokes how programmes like The Magic Roundabout were obviously made by people taking a lot of drugs, but this cartoon takes LSD animation to a whole other level...
I was lucky as a child as Dad ran the first British satellite TV channel for kids in the '80s and got sent lots of amazing cartoons from all round the world - many of which he bought and were shown for the first and sadly the last time in this country... My favourite was a Czech series about a little mole (I think how the makers were more concerned with telling the story rather than the constraints of conventional timekeeping, therefore making each episode a different length, could be why it didn't make it elsewhere). Watching it now it's extraordinary how beautiful it is and in a bizarre way restores your faith in humanity. This is a grand statement I know, but watch and see what you think...
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Serbian Adventures
So I am just back from Belgrade where I had a wonderful time and many strange adventures. Amongst my urban exploring and consuming of much coffee and beer I managed to fit in a reading of my work at a lovely cafe. The evening was organised by Dan who runs Treci Trg a great Serbian literary magazine (www.trecitrg.org.yu) so thank you to him, as well as extraordinary amounts of thank yous to a wonderful friend and poet Ana Seferovic who translated two extracts of my work in advance to read, as well as simultaneously translating the talk I gave about my work on the night. I mainly talked about the importance to me of creating an intuitive emotional response to prose, which is normally associated with visual art, music and poetry. I also talked about how memory relates to place in my work and explained some of the "and the ghosts so silver" projects. Some of my miniature books were also hidden around the cafe and I am looking forward to receiving these back (on that note thank you to the people who sent mini books back from Port Eliot - they were wonderful to read). I hope to go back next year and do a collaborative project with Ana.
Monday, 16 July 2007
Port Eliot lit fest
This weekend come down to the wonderful wild westcountry for the Port Eliot lit fest in St Germans, Cornwall. I'll be doing various things including miniature books and hidden stories, as well as a cabinet of story curiosities on display in the house containing the miniature books sent back to me so far. There are loads of amazing people there this year including Joe Boyd and William Dalrymple, who I am particularly excited about. Come come come! Also thank you to everyone who came down to the treasure trail last thursday.
Monday, 9 July 2007
Treasure Trail
As part of the North Kensington arts trail Intransit exhibition there will be an and the ghosts so silver treasure trail this Thursday 12th July. Starting point Westbourne Park tube station (Hammersmith and City line) and you can turn up any time between 1.30 and it being taken down at 10pm. Go to www.rbkc.gov.uk/intransit and click on treasure trail for a downloadable map of the route. Look out for miniature books, embroidered story mobiles, dioramas in shoe boxes, post-its, secret sound pads and tags all telling the secret stories of the area and leading you around the arts trail...
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Journey of Exchange Opening
The Journey of Exchange exhibition opens at Oxford House in Bethnal Green on thursday (5th) and runs for the whole of July. I have a print and miniature books in the exhibition and will be doing a post-it trail. Here's the flyer - please come!
Also don't forget the story treasure trail next week www.rbkc.gov.uk/intransit as part of Kensington arts council intransit exhibition series of artist led walks and events. It will be based on discovering the secret history of how the area used to be and the echoes of its past residents. More details later...
Also don't forget the story treasure trail next week www.rbkc.gov.uk/intransit as part of Kensington arts council intransit exhibition series of artist led walks and events. It will be based on discovering the secret history of how the area used to be and the echoes of its past residents. More details later...
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Exhibition story.
So here is my story that will be split up into miniature books for the Journey of Exchange exhibition.
Tbilisi, Georgia.
The car twisted us high speed into the city I’d dreamt of since small. I’d never arrived here this way in my head – there I kind of drifted across ruined balconies and landed on one to gaze out over all the others as they spun along the water’s edge like wooden cobwebs.
We got out by an old bridge and watched the cars trying to keep the people on foot from passing through. It didn’t work though – people just walked across in front of the speeding traffic and it miraculously missed them in a mist of hooting horns. We got out and said goodbye to the guy who’d driven us here. Paid him back his border bribes and sat on a small wall by a new flash bar, as the city crumbled around us and a bride walked out of the bar to family cheers. It was easy to not notice this place was falling down it was so beautiful. That hadn’t changed from my preconceptions. I was finally stood amongst the buildings I’d stared at in books as a child.
The windows hung from the balconies like square bunches of glass grapes. I felt that if I raised my hand I could pick them they were so frail – that they might crumble in pieces into my fingers and I could filter through the dust to find the stories that this city was hiding from me. It was hiding something still.
I dragged my suitcase into a taxi up the steep hill to the hotel. Up some stairs and onto our new balcony that seemed to taunt the old ones with how well it stayed up. I hardly noticed though – was floating above a view I had seen many times before. The old Metekhi church rising out of the city and the trees around the hills that tried to hide the buildings. The domes of the sulphur baths burst like bubbles from the cobbled ground.
He turned and smiled at me and we sat on the swing seat and rocked gently, up a little higher to see if we could peer over the hilltops where Mother Georgia stood with her sword and stared in stone at the tall spike of the communications tower. Its red and white stripes reminded me of seaside life rings, and a giant Soviet shell of a building hovered next to it, staring over the city with no purpose other than that, or to remind people that it was still there, somewhere in the background of this changing city. There were many different histories struggling to be remembered here. I never thought that our history would join them. Hovering happily through the broken wood and pastel painted stone. I smiled and walked back inside the room.
Tbilisi, Georgia.
The car twisted us high speed into the city I’d dreamt of since small. I’d never arrived here this way in my head – there I kind of drifted across ruined balconies and landed on one to gaze out over all the others as they spun along the water’s edge like wooden cobwebs.
We got out by an old bridge and watched the cars trying to keep the people on foot from passing through. It didn’t work though – people just walked across in front of the speeding traffic and it miraculously missed them in a mist of hooting horns. We got out and said goodbye to the guy who’d driven us here. Paid him back his border bribes and sat on a small wall by a new flash bar, as the city crumbled around us and a bride walked out of the bar to family cheers. It was easy to not notice this place was falling down it was so beautiful. That hadn’t changed from my preconceptions. I was finally stood amongst the buildings I’d stared at in books as a child.
The windows hung from the balconies like square bunches of glass grapes. I felt that if I raised my hand I could pick them they were so frail – that they might crumble in pieces into my fingers and I could filter through the dust to find the stories that this city was hiding from me. It was hiding something still.
I dragged my suitcase into a taxi up the steep hill to the hotel. Up some stairs and onto our new balcony that seemed to taunt the old ones with how well it stayed up. I hardly noticed though – was floating above a view I had seen many times before. The old Metekhi church rising out of the city and the trees around the hills that tried to hide the buildings. The domes of the sulphur baths burst like bubbles from the cobbled ground.
He turned and smiled at me and we sat on the swing seat and rocked gently, up a little higher to see if we could peer over the hilltops where Mother Georgia stood with her sword and stared in stone at the tall spike of the communications tower. Its red and white stripes reminded me of seaside life rings, and a giant Soviet shell of a building hovered next to it, staring over the city with no purpose other than that, or to remind people that it was still there, somewhere in the background of this changing city. There were many different histories struggling to be remembered here. I never thought that our history would join them. Hovering happily through the broken wood and pastel painted stone. I smiled and walked back inside the room.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Upcoming events.
I'm back from my adventures in the Caucasus and missing both Armenia and Georgia and the wonderful people me and William met very much... However it's inspired lots of new ideas and a new series of miniature books was hidden around Tbilisi (see below), and now it's time to throw myself back into work!
There are three big and the ghosts so silver events scheduled for July:
July 5th - Opening night, Journey of Exchange exhibition, Oxford House, Bethnal Green, London. This exhibition will run till the end of July and feature many hidden books and a post-it note story in the neighbourhood on the opening night. www.myspace.com/journeyofexchange
July 12th - Treasure trail as part of North Kensington Intransit exhibition arts trail. www.rbkc.gov.uk/intransit
July 20th-22nd - Port Eliot Literary Festival, St Germans, Cornwall. Treasure trail, miniature books and a cabinet of story curiosities. www.porteliotlitfest.com.
Please come and join in!
There are three big and the ghosts so silver events scheduled for July:
July 5th - Opening night, Journey of Exchange exhibition, Oxford House, Bethnal Green, London. This exhibition will run till the end of July and feature many hidden books and a post-it note story in the neighbourhood on the opening night. www.myspace.com/journeyofexchange
July 12th - Treasure trail as part of North Kensington Intransit exhibition arts trail. www.rbkc.gov.uk/intransit
July 20th-22nd - Port Eliot Literary Festival, St Germans, Cornwall. Treasure trail, miniature books and a cabinet of story curiosities. www.porteliotlitfest.com.
Please come and join in!
Friday, 23 February 2007
Southern ghosts...
"A place that was ever lived in is like a fire that never goes out. It flares up, it smolders for a time, it is fanned or smothered by circumstance, but its being is intact, forever fluttering within it, the result of some original ignition. Sometimes it gives out glory, sometimes its little light must be sought out to be seen, small and tender as a candle flame, but as certain." - Eudora Welty - introduction to her photos of Mississippi.
I've just come back from staying with my best friend William in Nashville, Tennessee, and we drove down to Memphis and then through Mississippi. I was struck by how the whole state had this atmosphere that felt like what I've been striving for in my work, yet I had never been there before. Where the spanish moss or kudzu clung to the trees it felt like an echo moving its way through the country to land somewhere else and tell its story again, rather than the new plant I knew it to be, almost, in the kudzu's case, suffocating the plant underneath.
It reminded me of how when I was writing my novel "We lay here slowly sinking" I began to realise the hidden parts of the city that were its memories - the echoes, even in empty places, of what had happened there before:
"I am trying to work out how to reach the inaccessible places of the city I saw from the train. They are the link. They seem inhuman, but I am now thinking that they are more so. Than the obvious places in the city that is. This is why nothing came to me in the museum – a place which should have been a monument to memory. I was sure I’d bump into Sam at first, but monuments are too obvious. They are put up to remember something that is not there anymore – like a ritual cleansing so it is okay to forget what something was really like. It has its public image now in stone and carved lettering. And those people I became aware of the other day – the ones almost like echoes – fading into the past they were waiting to come back to them, well then I know it is not in the middle of Oxford Street, or outside the Houses of Parliament that I would ever see them. I’m not sure I would ever notice memory there – it has been shut out by too many people that don’t care. It is in the places where people really spend their time that try and come back – throw their memories out into the city again. Old knocked down Victorian terraces or a scrap of land kids used to play on. And in the houses I can only see the front of, well the people who once lived there could have spent all day sat in the back garden, or gazing at the bits of land only the trains normally touch. They could have traced a few outlines with their fingers or marker pen on the window glass – outlined the cityscape they really knew. These drawings probably got cleaned away, but I like the idea that there are always traces once something has been marked. It’s hard to totally wash things away. Some things intend to be permanent from the start.
I think once people have moved on they leave a little bit of themselves behind, and it is this part which is then free to roam wherever it likes. It is not that there is someone, people as such, freeing the memories I or other people try to leave behind, store away, but rather they are parts of us wandering around the city. The empty buildings and industrial scrap land are now inhabited only by the people who really want to be there. Our echoes. They have come back to see their old area with new eyes, because this is where they really live. And these memories that came before what stands there now, well I’m not sure the new cityscape will be there for them at all – things will go back to how they were before. It is in these places that everyone can meet again. Where I could find you dry and full of things to say. I wonder if you really lived here all along. Whether I have been to your house."
Perhaps and the ghosts so silver, if nothing else, can encourage people to find these hidden echoes in their cities or villages - to look at a place they thought they knew so well and see if they can create its alternative history through its atmosphere. What truly hits you when you visit a certain place? One of my favourite places in London is the Crystal Palace park (you can't really go wrong with ruins, Victorian dinosaurs and a good view - there is also a pedalo graveyard - see if you can find it...), but what I feel is there, is very different to the wonderful but somewhat run down reality, and I'm sure it's because I can sense the different histories this park held. Here is my description of the main character Bella's experience of this place in "We lay here slowly sinking":
"There was a palace here once. They say it was made of crystal. I still think of how it might have shone out over the city and let the whole sky be lighter. Cleared the blackened buildings with light not soapy water. Nothing could be more powerful at cleaning than light. I wonder if the bricks were tinted with sunshine those years. The palace didn’t last long. Burned to the ground. Must have got too hot in all that sunshine. It slipped down the road like a volcano made of molten glass. Not the ones that explode but just melting to the ground, it oozed glitter. Can’t have been big enough to cause that much damage, but I like the idea that the city could have been wiped out by light, have made its own Pompeii out of glass and sunshine."
She creates her own fictional future for the city out of her experience of its past. Maybe with the and the ghosts so silver treasure hunts and miniature books we can try and create more of these imagined futures, to really absorb the city and create new multilayered experiences of how it could actually exist. The next story treasure hunt will be on Hampstead Heath and involve memories of highwaymen, so we shall see...
I've just come back from staying with my best friend William in Nashville, Tennessee, and we drove down to Memphis and then through Mississippi. I was struck by how the whole state had this atmosphere that felt like what I've been striving for in my work, yet I had never been there before. Where the spanish moss or kudzu clung to the trees it felt like an echo moving its way through the country to land somewhere else and tell its story again, rather than the new plant I knew it to be, almost, in the kudzu's case, suffocating the plant underneath.
It reminded me of how when I was writing my novel "We lay here slowly sinking" I began to realise the hidden parts of the city that were its memories - the echoes, even in empty places, of what had happened there before:
"I am trying to work out how to reach the inaccessible places of the city I saw from the train. They are the link. They seem inhuman, but I am now thinking that they are more so. Than the obvious places in the city that is. This is why nothing came to me in the museum – a place which should have been a monument to memory. I was sure I’d bump into Sam at first, but monuments are too obvious. They are put up to remember something that is not there anymore – like a ritual cleansing so it is okay to forget what something was really like. It has its public image now in stone and carved lettering. And those people I became aware of the other day – the ones almost like echoes – fading into the past they were waiting to come back to them, well then I know it is not in the middle of Oxford Street, or outside the Houses of Parliament that I would ever see them. I’m not sure I would ever notice memory there – it has been shut out by too many people that don’t care. It is in the places where people really spend their time that try and come back – throw their memories out into the city again. Old knocked down Victorian terraces or a scrap of land kids used to play on. And in the houses I can only see the front of, well the people who once lived there could have spent all day sat in the back garden, or gazing at the bits of land only the trains normally touch. They could have traced a few outlines with their fingers or marker pen on the window glass – outlined the cityscape they really knew. These drawings probably got cleaned away, but I like the idea that there are always traces once something has been marked. It’s hard to totally wash things away. Some things intend to be permanent from the start.
I think once people have moved on they leave a little bit of themselves behind, and it is this part which is then free to roam wherever it likes. It is not that there is someone, people as such, freeing the memories I or other people try to leave behind, store away, but rather they are parts of us wandering around the city. The empty buildings and industrial scrap land are now inhabited only by the people who really want to be there. Our echoes. They have come back to see their old area with new eyes, because this is where they really live. And these memories that came before what stands there now, well I’m not sure the new cityscape will be there for them at all – things will go back to how they were before. It is in these places that everyone can meet again. Where I could find you dry and full of things to say. I wonder if you really lived here all along. Whether I have been to your house."
Perhaps and the ghosts so silver, if nothing else, can encourage people to find these hidden echoes in their cities or villages - to look at a place they thought they knew so well and see if they can create its alternative history through its atmosphere. What truly hits you when you visit a certain place? One of my favourite places in London is the Crystal Palace park (you can't really go wrong with ruins, Victorian dinosaurs and a good view - there is also a pedalo graveyard - see if you can find it...), but what I feel is there, is very different to the wonderful but somewhat run down reality, and I'm sure it's because I can sense the different histories this park held. Here is my description of the main character Bella's experience of this place in "We lay here slowly sinking":
"There was a palace here once. They say it was made of crystal. I still think of how it might have shone out over the city and let the whole sky be lighter. Cleared the blackened buildings with light not soapy water. Nothing could be more powerful at cleaning than light. I wonder if the bricks were tinted with sunshine those years. The palace didn’t last long. Burned to the ground. Must have got too hot in all that sunshine. It slipped down the road like a volcano made of molten glass. Not the ones that explode but just melting to the ground, it oozed glitter. Can’t have been big enough to cause that much damage, but I like the idea that the city could have been wiped out by light, have made its own Pompeii out of glass and sunshine."
She creates her own fictional future for the city out of her experience of its past. Maybe with the and the ghosts so silver treasure hunts and miniature books we can try and create more of these imagined futures, to really absorb the city and create new multilayered experiences of how it could actually exist. The next story treasure hunt will be on Hampstead Heath and involve memories of highwaymen, so we shall see...
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
More stories lost and found...
Three miniature books hidden at the Port Eliot LIterary Festival, July 2006:
(please excuse the blurred photos...)
(please excuse the blurred photos...)
Friday, 22 December 2006
Thursday, 14 December 2006
Of pockets and post-its...
Here are the rest of and the ghosts so silver's current projects. I will add more as they occur and update on the existing ones as they develop, including start locations and dates for treasure hunt stories, and new miniature books that are returned. We always welcome feedback, as well as your ideas about memory, place and stories...
Pocket pieces.
For this project I write fragments of stories or stand-alone sentences on old torn bits of A4, or old receipts, so they look like the sort of thing anyone would find in an uncleared-out pocket. I then go and put them in the pockets of new clothes in shops, so that people can create a history from a seemingly new garment. I developed this idea and began to leave notes in people's pockets as they walked along - almost like a reverse of pick-pocketing. There have as yet been no contact details left on these pieces of paper as I think in this case anonymity is key to truly interacting personally with the reader - almost as if the note could have been somthing they left themselves and forgot about, and with the stories left in new clothes an identity could hinder the creation of an imaginary history of this garment. I believe that the imagination works most fruitfully when triggered and encouraged rather than directed or controlled.
Post-it notes series.
This is my longest running project started about four years ago when I was living in a small town in Dorset, and first became interested in new ways of illustrating my writing and interacting with the reader. I split up stories in fragments on post-it notes and flyered them around the town in both obvious and unusual places. I then went back to see what had happened to them. Sometimes they had simply washed away, but once one had been put up on a notice board and old ladies were discussing it! I love the idea that people can find part, or the whole, of a story, but it doesn't matter which; each fragment has the potential to interact personally with its finder in that moment. I use post-it notes as they are normally purely functional stationary that you would expect to find something such as a discarded boring list on. This again subverts our expectations of the things we discard or find on a daily basis - our expectations of when we are going to discover a story or read a work of fiction.
Treasure trails and following pieces.
The post-it note series made me think more about how the reader collaborates with the writer in how the work eventually fulfills its potential. By finding the work in its site-specific context the reader is an integral part of its completion. I moved to Berlin then Paris and decided to see if I could get someone to follow fragments of a story as I left them whilst walking around the city, exploring its stranger less known parts. Could the physical act of this site-specific storytelling and the location of a fragment help the story be communicated in a way that partly overcomes the language barrier? By making the reader part of the process of the story, and possibly leaving them to be the conclusion of the story, I was in a way letting them create a story from the remnants of my ideas - almost like echoes of what it might have been, but that any number of new interpretations were equally as valid.
The Treasure trail pieces are just a slight variation of these following works. Here clues are left dotted around the city for a person to find and create their own story illustrated by the places they have discovered. At the end of the trail I leave something significant to the story I wrote. And the ghosts so silver is planning a series of secret treasure hunts for next year where we will arrange a start location and leave details at the end so that we can have a record of all the stories created from different interpretations of the same story read/ objects found.
Ephemeral graffiti.
I get continually frustrated with the potential of graffiti as a way of presenting creative writing, but how it is so often about tagging, identity and permanence. My ephemeral graffiti uses materials such as glitter on snow, leaves, twigs and swirled dust and mud to write a phrase that could connect a person with that place in a specific moment. Its anonymity and ephemerality is important. It is not about marking, but interacting with a place and being part of its natural process of change.
Pocket pieces.
For this project I write fragments of stories or stand-alone sentences on old torn bits of A4, or old receipts, so they look like the sort of thing anyone would find in an uncleared-out pocket. I then go and put them in the pockets of new clothes in shops, so that people can create a history from a seemingly new garment. I developed this idea and began to leave notes in people's pockets as they walked along - almost like a reverse of pick-pocketing. There have as yet been no contact details left on these pieces of paper as I think in this case anonymity is key to truly interacting personally with the reader - almost as if the note could have been somthing they left themselves and forgot about, and with the stories left in new clothes an identity could hinder the creation of an imaginary history of this garment. I believe that the imagination works most fruitfully when triggered and encouraged rather than directed or controlled.
Post-it notes series.
This is my longest running project started about four years ago when I was living in a small town in Dorset, and first became interested in new ways of illustrating my writing and interacting with the reader. I split up stories in fragments on post-it notes and flyered them around the town in both obvious and unusual places. I then went back to see what had happened to them. Sometimes they had simply washed away, but once one had been put up on a notice board and old ladies were discussing it! I love the idea that people can find part, or the whole, of a story, but it doesn't matter which; each fragment has the potential to interact personally with its finder in that moment. I use post-it notes as they are normally purely functional stationary that you would expect to find something such as a discarded boring list on. This again subverts our expectations of the things we discard or find on a daily basis - our expectations of when we are going to discover a story or read a work of fiction.
Treasure trails and following pieces.
The post-it note series made me think more about how the reader collaborates with the writer in how the work eventually fulfills its potential. By finding the work in its site-specific context the reader is an integral part of its completion. I moved to Berlin then Paris and decided to see if I could get someone to follow fragments of a story as I left them whilst walking around the city, exploring its stranger less known parts. Could the physical act of this site-specific storytelling and the location of a fragment help the story be communicated in a way that partly overcomes the language barrier? By making the reader part of the process of the story, and possibly leaving them to be the conclusion of the story, I was in a way letting them create a story from the remnants of my ideas - almost like echoes of what it might have been, but that any number of new interpretations were equally as valid.
The Treasure trail pieces are just a slight variation of these following works. Here clues are left dotted around the city for a person to find and create their own story illustrated by the places they have discovered. At the end of the trail I leave something significant to the story I wrote. And the ghosts so silver is planning a series of secret treasure hunts for next year where we will arrange a start location and leave details at the end so that we can have a record of all the stories created from different interpretations of the same story read/ objects found.
Ephemeral graffiti.
I get continually frustrated with the potential of graffiti as a way of presenting creative writing, but how it is so often about tagging, identity and permanence. My ephemeral graffiti uses materials such as glitter on snow, leaves, twigs and swirled dust and mud to write a phrase that could connect a person with that place in a specific moment. Its anonymity and ephemerality is important. It is not about marking, but interacting with a place and being part of its natural process of change.
The miniature books project.
As well as a forum for new writing and incidental strangeness this website will outline the projects which and the ghosts so silver has been working on over the past few months.
The idea with the miniature books series is to create a story that would only truly be complete if found; to illustrate it by the person's experience of its finding. Miniature books are made and a line from one of my existing stories is written in the front to become the first line of the story in the book. The "and the ghosts so silver" address and a stamp are then put in the back of the book with instructions to please complete and return if found.
So far books have been hidden at a story reading in Bristol, the Port Eliot literary festival in Cornwall, as well as in random places in towns and villages across the country. Next month they will be hidden in and around an art gallery in Belgrade as part of an event I will also be reading at - the books in this instance will contain lines from my reading. It is always a delight to open the envelopes as they are returned and see how people have taken a line that was originally meant one way, but for them it has become something completely different - the trigger for their own story. I hope that by finding these books people will think differently about their surroundings and expectations of random things they might find in the street; that they might realise that stories are threaded through even the most mundane parts of our lives.
I am planning to expand this project across Europe to create a library of lost and found books. I have also been particularly thrilled with the creativity of some of the books completed by children, and and the ghosts so silver will be looking into how to use this project, amongst others, for what could be seen as incidental/accidental site-specific writing workshops for our youngest collaborators.
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
Whispers, they wreathed around her...
House breaking (excerpt from "We lay here slowly sinking").
"I am beginning to map the city through which parts of my life I have left there. I pass places and when I do this I am sometimes able to leave things behind, but I know that also in a way I have lost these things, like diaries a mother burned or a head that’s got old; you know they must be somewhere, but if they’re destroyed or forgotten, who’s going to remember them? I do not know if anyone will ever find these things once I’ve left them behind. If this ever happens.
Would they batter at the windows? These memories. Shake them like a wind that had got trapped the wrong side of glass. It could be violent in there if they were of you. Cold and blowing against each other. Or the heat of those feelings – maybe it would be more like them – hot hot heat. Burning. But the glass wouldn’t crack, melt, blow out with a sudden gust. It could all just be quiet; be peaceful after all. It was the remembering that made them active, behave in this way. Without me perhaps they’d stay still, and the room would be very light – white with bright sunshine, but not too warm. It would be clear. Just a large sash window and a wooden floor. If I went inside I would float invisible – I could not really be there.
I like to walk away from these houses once I’ve filled them. I don’t break in – if they are truly empty I maybe test a window or push at the back door, go inside and sit a while and think out all I thought that day. I write it down if it gets very complicated – leave a note tucked into the skirting board. But mostly I just rest my hands against an outside wall, push my nose against a window and breathe gently – memory swims in that way in moist patterns, absorbed as they dissolve from view. I wonder if these houses get lived in again. Whether the new person breathes in what I left alone there. Maybe my memory swims round their heads – makes them wake up sometimes and wonder. And if not, then I think it would just condense and trickle to the floor – seep sideways to the walls – hide itself in bricks and mortar. It could expand then ‘til the house was riddled with memory, ‘til it shook with unheard quivers when the wind blew too strong. This is not a sign of weakness. They are now stronger from within."
Welcome to and the ghosts so silver, where stories are left to be found; to be stumbled across in an everyday world; to illustrate your day as you leave the house and go to work, potter along to the shops for a newspaper or a can of drink. As the reader it is you that can bring our stories to life - the ones we have lost, echoes and memories, things that have been hanging around for minutes or years just to be found and brought back again.
Over the next few days I will lay out our projects - the things we do to place these stories in your world, trigger a history you did not know you had, a new relationship with the city or countryside you walk through. Places are talking to you, you just have to listen a little harder to the quiet things...
"I am beginning to map the city through which parts of my life I have left there. I pass places and when I do this I am sometimes able to leave things behind, but I know that also in a way I have lost these things, like diaries a mother burned or a head that’s got old; you know they must be somewhere, but if they’re destroyed or forgotten, who’s going to remember them? I do not know if anyone will ever find these things once I’ve left them behind. If this ever happens.
Would they batter at the windows? These memories. Shake them like a wind that had got trapped the wrong side of glass. It could be violent in there if they were of you. Cold and blowing against each other. Or the heat of those feelings – maybe it would be more like them – hot hot heat. Burning. But the glass wouldn’t crack, melt, blow out with a sudden gust. It could all just be quiet; be peaceful after all. It was the remembering that made them active, behave in this way. Without me perhaps they’d stay still, and the room would be very light – white with bright sunshine, but not too warm. It would be clear. Just a large sash window and a wooden floor. If I went inside I would float invisible – I could not really be there.
I like to walk away from these houses once I’ve filled them. I don’t break in – if they are truly empty I maybe test a window or push at the back door, go inside and sit a while and think out all I thought that day. I write it down if it gets very complicated – leave a note tucked into the skirting board. But mostly I just rest my hands against an outside wall, push my nose against a window and breathe gently – memory swims in that way in moist patterns, absorbed as they dissolve from view. I wonder if these houses get lived in again. Whether the new person breathes in what I left alone there. Maybe my memory swims round their heads – makes them wake up sometimes and wonder. And if not, then I think it would just condense and trickle to the floor – seep sideways to the walls – hide itself in bricks and mortar. It could expand then ‘til the house was riddled with memory, ‘til it shook with unheard quivers when the wind blew too strong. This is not a sign of weakness. They are now stronger from within."
Welcome to and the ghosts so silver, where stories are left to be found; to be stumbled across in an everyday world; to illustrate your day as you leave the house and go to work, potter along to the shops for a newspaper or a can of drink. As the reader it is you that can bring our stories to life - the ones we have lost, echoes and memories, things that have been hanging around for minutes or years just to be found and brought back again.
Over the next few days I will lay out our projects - the things we do to place these stories in your world, trigger a history you did not know you had, a new relationship with the city or countryside you walk through. Places are talking to you, you just have to listen a little harder to the quiet things...
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