I
strongly have this feeling that our everyday life is at
one and the same time banal, platitudinous, over familiar,
and yet mysterious, extraordinary. I have even more strongly
the feeling that facing death leads one to search for
some sense of meaning in ones existence.
Brian
Magee
In
2001 I was invited by Jubilee Arts (renamed The
Public in 2002) to undertake a 12 month residency
in West Bromwich, a small town sitting at the heart of
the Black Country in the West Midlands.
I worked with the support of bursary-award artist Cath
Tarbuck and sound artist Bobby Bird to develop a complex
18 speaker installation. Through Elders many
individuals relate their own meaning of life, meditating
upon what is most important to them as they reflect upon
the past and feel towards to the future.
For this project we asked two writers - The Public's
project director Brendan Jackson and cultural theorist
Giles Peaker - to consider their own response after experiencing
the installation:
Elders
participants include:
Anne Wilkins, Bill Hipkiss, Cath Fisher,
Dolly Wheatley, Edna Barker, Floss Wellbourne, Geri Norton,
Joan Harris, John Allen, June Pritchard, Kitty May, Loui
Truby, Mrs Brown, Mrs Riley, Saul Ali, Omar.
Elders
has been exhibited: Jubilee
Arts
West Bromwich, December 2002
Queen Square Shopping Centre West Bromwich
January 28th - February 3rd
The Weekend Break live Art Event West Bromwich May 29-30th 2003
Radiation
Exhibition
Commercial X-Ray Factory, Smethwick
November 2003
