Landmarks
Me and Rufus Mufasa had talked about collaborating for over a year before we put on ‘Landmarks’. Our work seemed to run alongside each other, and we finally managed to pull it together for the installation piece we created for Made in Roath Festival, with help from Articulture.
With this immersive piece in ‘Inkspot’ old church we created an intimate space for sharing, developing our own practice and encouraging others to question and explore their own. The starting point was ‘nature’ words that had been deleted from the Oxford Junior Dictionary, and replaced with ‘technology’ words. It sparked debate in our audiences about language, nature, poetry, technology and Hip-hop culture.
Acorn, Otter, Ivy, Heather, Fern, Heron, Newt… replaced by Chatroom, Blog, Cut & Paste, Broadband, PC, Podcast…
Boxes, collaged with words from dictionaries, words made from scrabble letters, piles of dictionaries and books about nature, as well as Ivy, Acorns, Conkers, Ferns, Clover and other everyday gifts from nature formed our installation. I also sprayed directly onto the wall and displayed my ‘Time Heals’ series and work on canvas.
Rufus created poems and gave me a loop pedal. Thrown in at the deep end I just about managed to swim through it, creating sounds with the looper, and playing some choice vinyl to support Rufus’ beautiful words and voice.
We went on to perform the soundscape at ‘Do Not Go Gentle’ festival in Swansea, ‘Voices On The Bridge’ in Pontypridd Museum, ‘Endeavours’ at the Embassy Café in Cardiff and headlining for the fantastic ‘Write a Note’ poetry event in Southampton.
Landmarks part2 will be performed in Maindee Library on 19th May at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Marion Cheung’s ‘Lost Connections’ paintings inspired some of Rufus’ Landmarks lyrics, and we are excited to be showing some of her beautiful work as part of the Maindee installation. You can see some of Marion’s work here.#
