The Greatest Show On Earth

Last week we attended workshops being run by Phoebe Cummings in Burslem as part of her Greatest Show on Earth project. The exhibition will include clay works produced by the children, displayed at the Etruria Industrial Museum on Thursday 28th February from 2-4pm. More details available from here.

Above: Sculptures produced by the children to represent their ideal homes.

Interview with Dinu Li

DL - Dinu Li
MH - Mishka Henner

MH: Could you tell us about the film you're working on and how you chose your actress?

DL: There were over 500 people who responded to the call out for an actress because they were attracted to this Dangerous Liaison theme. I think they thought it would be this huge Hollywood film I was making. But the reason why I am interested in Dangerous Liaisons is because in the opening and the end of the film we see the main character putting on and taking off her make-up and for me that is the essence of change. When you put your make-up on you become something else and whe you take your make-up off you again you become this different person, so that is what I am trying to recreate.

What I asked for were people who had rosy complexions and classic features. I also wanted people who are quite local. For me Rachel just has this look without having to try very hard. She already is very interesting to look at. And I think Rachel has a presence that the others don't so that will be very useful later.

You will eventually see all these interiors but shot in timelapse. You'll just see the light passing through. this is from upstairs but it's not good to be there, I've become ill coz it's so dusty. If you spend ten minutes your skin starts to itch because of the asbestos and lots of dead pigeons everywhere and pigeon shit. There are essentially three different centuries going on; the 18th, 19th, and 20th century. I'm leaving the 21st century out, I'm not describing it.

MH: How did you find this location?

DL: Once I knew I was doing the commission I came here and started talkng to lots of local people and Peter was the one actually, Peta Murphy Burke kept going on about this place and I just wanted to be sure so I looked at lots of other places and filmed some others. Local historian Fred Hughes has also been very helpful. Once I got stuck into this things started to grow on me because of the wallpaper. I also like the light and shadow of this space.

MH: How important is the timelapse element of this piece?

DL: It's hugely important because that is what the commission is about. It's about the changing of places and people and so when you think about even the title 'timelapse' it's just so relevant.

Dinu will be showing his film, looking at the passing of light and the changes that take place in time and space, on Monday 17th March 2008 at the Film Theatre, Flaxman Building, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2EF. Complimentary drinks and snacks will be available from 6.30pm, with the main presentation and Q&A session starting at 7pm.

Scars on the Landscape

"Most studies of ruins have concentrated on the noble piles of classical antiquity, scenes of rural quaintness or the fake ruins installed in English country estates. Yet the 20th century has produced more ruins than ever before, whether through warfare or as a remorseless, short term-oriented capitalism turns solid things and places into air, rendering the contents and activities housed within industrial buildings instantaneously obsolete. In Britain, at the end of the 1970’s and through the eighties, the government of Margaret Thatcher allowed ‘market forces’ full reign, promoting an orgy of real estate speculation which produced a reconstructed industrial landscape. But not everywhere was able to capitalise on this economic reconstruction and in many areas, as old industries died, the buildings that housed them lay dormant and empty. This process persists and the material legacy of the industrial revolution, in the form of ruins, can still be found in most British cities.

These ruins are largely understood – especially by bureaucrats, city promoters and planners - as offensive to the character and aesthetics of the city. The sooner these scars on the landscape are demolished and swept away, effaced in the name of civic order, the better. They are matter out of place, a continuing rebuke to attempts to render urban space productive, smooth and regular. Imagined as sites of urban disorder, dens into which deviant characters – drug-users, gang-members, vandals and the homeless – are drawn, the imperative is to extinguish their decaying features from the urban backdrop." Tim Edensor, found here.

CLAY performance

On Tuesday night, we attended the opening of 'Clay' by B Arts, a site specific piece of theatre performed first inside Burslem School of Art before moving on to the disused Acme Marls site at Bournes Bank. Susan Clarke, Director of B Arts, described the show as "being about making a community. In the process of making the show we've made a little tribe who stick together and look after each other. The song we sing during the show means 'People make us who we are,' which we think is one of the key messages that gets lost amongst everything else that everyone seems to be worrying about." The performers and crew were made up of professional artists, emerging or early career artists, refugees and local residents.

Find out more about B Arts here.

Interviews with four CLAY participants

LL - Liz Lock
MH - Mishka Henner

Ben, 28

Ben: In anything to do with creative practice, everyone can feel that something good's happening to the city. From music to the arts, theatre, films, people are actually going, "hey, this is good." Whereas before my mum would've said, "why don't you go to Liverpool, why not Manchester? There's loads happening there." Well, I want to be here when it kicks off and I think it's going to happen.
MH: How would you describe what's happening here?
Ben: I'm excited about it and would describe it as having a ticket to go on a roller coaster, but I don't know where it's going. It feels like we're going up that uphill incline, it's that kind of excitement. It might be over dead quick, it might be long.
MH: Do you think the landscape of Stoke has anything to do with that?
Ben: The fact that it's six towns is one of the reasons why I've stayed here. But I also think it's stunted the chance of this place going ballistic in terms of the arts. I feel it's where Manchester was 20 years ago in terms of employment levels, aspirations, opportunities. And out of that you get really gritty poets, songwriters, bands and artists.
MH: How would you describe the work that people are producing here?
Ben: There's two ends to it, you've got the uplifting, positive promotion of good things happening here which is exactly what this play is all about, then there's people who sing about the glum streets of Burslem with no future. But it has got a future, it's just about finding those juicy tangible bits that people can get their teeth into.
MH: What are those tangibles?
Ben: The city has a tendency to hemorrhage talent. People will come in, get skilled up, then leave for Manchester or Birmingham. For the people who actually live here, having grown up on these streets with parents who worked down the pot banks, there's that cycle of never asking for stuff or expecting anything, never striving for stuff. And that's starting to change with the people living here. They're starting to come around now, saying "well actually, Manchester's got this, we want this. Birmingham's got this, we want this. Let's not have it all in London, we want this."
MH: What is that thing that people want?

Ben: I think they're proud of where they live, but they want to be able to be proud today of where they're from. I think it's a sense of pride and also, they just want someone to say, "it's okay." They want to be able to say, "this is what I want."

Binyam (Jordan), 17. From Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Jordan: I play basketball and they call me Jordan so I like to be called that. I live in Hanley. I've only been in the UK for six months. Before I was in Ethiopia. There it's ten months sunshine and two months rain. Here it's the other way around.
MH: What's Stoke like compared to Ethiopia? It must be very different.
Jordan: It's colder here than in Ethiopia! But in Ethiopia right now, everything is changing. There is this thing now that they are building called a condominium. There's a lot of building happening everywhere you look. They used to be a poor country but now they are developing.
MH: Are people different here to your home country?
Jordan: There is something here which I find hard to believe. If you see an eleven year old girl with a boyfriend, I don't appreciate that. It's not the time to think about boyfriends at that age. In my country, you have to get a boyfriend or girlfriend after 18. You can have a chat, but not sex. The main reason I think you have this problem here is because it's a rich country, and the families never control their children.
MH: How do you know that England is a rich country?
Binyam: If you go to London or Manchester, you see a lot of things that you know make people rich. Like cars, or buildings, even the money is much higher here than everywhere else in the world.

Imar, 17. From Ghazni, Afghanistan

MH: How different is Stoke to Afghanistan?

Imar: Really different actually.
MH: Really!
Imar: The houses, the cars, people.
MH: How are people here?
Imar: The people are friendly here, everything's cool.
MH: How's the food here?
Imar: Lots of sandwiches, salad, and kebabs. In Afghanistan we have a lot of meat, and kebabs, with really good rice.
MH: What are the houses like in Afghanistan?
Imar: Really different, in Afghanistan people make the houses with their hands. Here they're made by machines and very stylish. There's no stylish in Afghanistan.
LL: Have you been to other places in England?
Imar: I've been to Bimingham and Manchester. There are lots of big buildings and shopping complexes in those cities, lots of crowds and people, it's quite different.
MH: What do you do in the evenings here?
Imar: Sometimes I go out but not very often. I need permission from my father or brother to go out. In Afghanistan it's a free country I can go out at anytime. But here if you don't speak good English people want to fight with you.

Omran, 17. From Balochistan, Iran

Omran: Everything is different here. The weather, city centre, people, everything.
MH: What are the main differences?
Omran: Everything!
LL: Is anything the same?
Omran: No, I don't think so.
MH: What about the food?
Omran: It's very good here.
MH: I don't believe you!
Omran: Here all the food is in freezers. In Iran you could buy fresh, that's different.
MH: What do you like to eat here?
Omran: I like the chips. They're ready made, you just put them in the oven and they're ready. You don't have to chop everything up like in Iran.
MH: What are people like here?
Omran: People are very good, when you talk to them they're very nice.
MH: Did you ever do anything artistic in Iran?
Omran: No, nothing at all. I like the dancing here, I love the dancing.
LL: What do you think of the landscape here? How is housing different to Iran?
Omran: Here they are all next to each other. In Iran one house is here and another one over there.
MH: Do you like that people here go out a lot?
Omran: Here people can drink alcohol because they get enough money to buy that. They get paid every day but in Iran people don't get paid for months so they can't go outside until they get paid so they have to go home and alcohol is very expensive there.

Rehearsing CLAY

Rehearsing Clay on the former site of Acme Marls

"CLAY is an exploration of loss and discovery, forgetting and invention, remembering and hoping, the cycle of change, using live performance, fire, sound, clay and bread.

The performance will take place indoors and outside and starts in Burslem School of Art, Queen Street, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, ST6 3EJ at 7pm on Tuesday 5th February 2008.

Please RSVP: info@pandaemonium.biz or T: 01782 717326"

The following photos were taken at Clay's rehearsals at the Burslem School of Art on the 3 February (click on the images to move through the pictures and refresh the page to start again).

Stoke Dream #3

I'm cycling through a sprawling metropolis, rushing to get to a meeting on time when I take a series of wrong turns and end up in Stoke, in a complex of pink, high-density high rise apartments not unlike those found in Hong Kong. Inside the complex, rows and rows of pink and red clothes hang from washing lines that criss-cross from building to building. Weaving through them, I find the door of an apartment and decide to see if I can cut through the flat to get to the other side. The door is unlocked and as I carry my bike on my shoulder through the tiny apartment, I notice that the living room is tiny with the floor plan shaped like a diamond, with only a TV in the corner and two raised doorways side-by-side leading into it. I hear faint music and head towards a narrow corridor at the opposite end of the living room when out from one of the doors emerges a youngish lookng-man in his thirties. Unfazed by the sight of a stranger in his living room with a bike, he asks if he can help, to which I admit that I'm lost. He takes me out of the flat and points the way out of the complex. We begin chatting and he tells me he works in business. I ask what kind of business and he replies, "pure business." When I explain I'm a documentary photographer he interrupts, "oh yes, my grand-father was Stanley Matthews don't you know." Amazed, I explain the documentary we're doing in Stoke, and ask if he'd like to have his portrait taken. "Only if I can see your place" he replies. Keen to explore this new relationship with a potential subject, I agree and we return to my two-up-two-down which is a very long terraced house and looks like it's been furnished entirely from an ILVA catalogue. I show him the marble walls which have just been installed and the antique though rusty motorbikes parked in the conservatory, which he takes great interest in. It's then that my mother walks in and he embraces her hand, creepily continuing to kiss the length of her arm. My dad arrives and wonders who this man is, at which point things start to get awkward. We say our farewells and the man leaves. After a heated exchange in which I justify to my parents who and why this man is in my house, I head for the back garden and stop at the motorbikes, realizing one of the tires has been slashed and is leaking air.