DARK DAYS, LUMINOUS NIGHTS THE WHITE HOTEL, SALFORD 3rd-10th June, 2021 NEW DATES… It’s 2021. Manchester. Gleaming apartments rise up over the ancient river Irk, and under the prime real estate of Angel Meadow, 40,000 bodies are buried. Cities change. In their most ambitious collaborative project to date, Manchester Collective re-imagine the live experience for a volatile new age. Inspired by a journey along a ruined waterway and premiering in mid-winter at The White Hotel in Salford, ‘Dark Days, Luminous […]
OUR FUTURE IS ANCIENT
film – made in Dec 2020, at the end of the 12 months
In December, on the winter solstice, 2019, I began work on a major project named ‘Our Future is Ancient’ which was commissioned by the Barnaby Festival. Each full moon, at dawn, until the follwing solstice in 2020. I couldn’t known, as I started, that I’d be working against the backdrop of a pandemic, creating one of the kost extraordinary 12 month periods of my life.
Each full moon I would travel into Macclesfield Forest before dawn and record my experience amongst the trees in the dark, and emerging twilight. We all grew up with the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel so, despite it being a place of sanctuary, I actually felt safer on the streets of Salford than amongst the dark of the forest.
However, as the months went on, I grew to love being there before daybreak, even feeling disappointment when the light arrived. The call of owls and other creatures was magical.
Lockdown has changed our world and during the weeks of confinement, I began to crave the forest, desperate to savour its mysteries and the comfort of the natural world. The virus has caused me to feel very differently about my own life, and creating work around such an ancient place feels very relevant at the moment.
I’m fascinated by the way trees communicate with each other underground, and I’ve learned so much about the deep time they occupy, hauling me from ignorant urban state. At the same time I’ve been aware of my sub-conscious being at work, processing the events of the past few months as survive the Covid-19 crisis. What emerged was the idea to meld the way trees communicate with my own mind, and produce stories in response to this. The work will eventually be a performance and a series of short films featuring visuals, sound, music and readings.
The premier of the work, in a live performance will take place at St. Michael’s Church in Macclesfield on June 19th at 8pm. Along with my readings of the text I’ve created, I will be joined onstage by Rioghnach Connelly ( Honeyfeet, The Breath ) and the brilliant cellist Liz Hanks. Ticket info is still to be confirmed.
Earlier this year, I was commissioned by Place First to document the first phase of the Welsh Streets regeneration project in Liverpool 8. The series of terraced streets are being refurbished so that once again the area will be again a thriving community. There was a strong campaign in the local area to have the houses saved from demolition and the project shows that not always do existing dwellings have to be flattened and replaced with high rise structures. In […]
FROM TRINITY TO THE CRESCENT APRIL 2016 ONWARDS ‘From Trinity To The Crescent’ is the second Not Quite Light Project. It will explore the area around the River Irwell, which is used as the physical border between the cities of Manchester and Salford. This will take me from just below Strangeways along Chapel Street and Deansgate, and as far as the Crescent, as the A6 heads away from the city centre. The history between Salford and Manchester is fascinating, and […]