Trading Places/CR.E.A.T.E. Programme

The Residencies

Periodic updates from the journals of the artists involved in this project. Back to residencies

St Joseph's PS, Lisburn, Co Antrim; Nicola Curry

Art Act

Written by artist Nicola on 10 March 2004

Today we worked on completing out movement story inspired by the tales of a pupil’s father who worked as an engineer in Blackstaff Mill. The group responded to words and phrases from his written account and we sequenced these together with the movement inspired by our first tale last week.

In the afternoon we were able to visit, ART ACT a local gallery near the school in Castle Street Lisburn. The gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of work of artist Roland Inman entitled ‘Lisburn - comings and goings’. There are several paintings of Mills around Lisburn and beyond including Island Mill, Stewarts Mill and a bleaching green. Many of these buildings are no longer standing. The group were very taken with the paintings, the gallery space and the warm welcome and hospitality of owner Anthea McWilliams. This exhibition runs Tues-Sat until 24th April 12pm-5pm.

Tales and Tablecloths

Written by artist Nicola on 9 March 2004

Today a member of the group brings in a tablecloth woven by his grandmother. It is expertly made with beautiful patterns throughout. We also hear another tale from a pupil’s father who worked as an engineer in Blackstaff Mill in Belfast. His tale describes the noises, smells, working conditions and some accidents that occured in dangerous conditions. Here is an extract of his story.

“The place was dirty, dusty and damp and cold. The dust came from the yarn as it went through the looms, the air that went in the motors blew the dust everywhere. It got in your hair, down your shoes, in your ears and up your nose.”

We worked on our movement story from last week and will incorporate some of this new tale into the movement piece also.

Stories to tell

Written by artist Nicola on 9 March 2004

Today we heard a recollection of a young worker’s life in a mill. We are using this as the basis of a movement piece for the group. Working together we discuss the different movement ideas we have for each part of the story. From these we select which one to use and sequence them together with music.

The movement piece is inspired by the story of an eight year old girl who was taken out of school to work in a mill for twleve hours a day for six days a week. She was paid the equivalent of 40p a week for her work as a spinner. Everyone agrees they would not wish to work for such long hours for such little pay. The floor was wet and her clothes were damp from the spray of the spindles. Becasuse of these wet conditions many workers had ill health and died young.

Video Footage

Written by artist Nicola on 25 February 2004

The snow today prevents us recording the final group until the afternoon, so we watch back the recordings of last week, and hear tales brought into school of family relatives who worked or remembered the site when the Mill was operational. Most tales are of fingers being cut off!! The school had half-timers attend many years ago, this was the name given to young people who worked in the Mill but also attended school. The whole school is investigating links to the Mill and we hope to hear first-hand the tales of many more people who once worked there.

Once the snow stopped, the final group were able to respond to their chosen site and record their movements. We found a few more places to explore that hadn’t been discovered in our other visits and once back in school we watched the footage and began to see how we could link different explorations together in editing.

We are also working with ideas of traces of the past and hope to visit a Mill site (with Mill still standing!) and make some new recordings there.

Recording Day

Written by artist Nicola on 25 February 2004

Day four and we bring small groups to the our site to record personal movement phrases. We have adventures with the EXPLORART public art and sculpture trail using some of them as sites themselves. Each person has their own chosen space and is assigned a partner, who will record the exploration. They spend time together in the chosen place and the mover moves in response to that place. The partner observes and makes decisions on where to position the camera in relation to what they see. They also are aware of sounds that maybe heard and shadows that may fall. We have trial runs to negotiate camera movement before recording our partner.

Everyone has clear ideas about how they want to record their partner and enjoys using the camera. We have all chosen a different space to respond to today but the day ends before everyone in the class has their exploration recorded. Lets hope the sun shines for the others on our next day together!

Journey Tales

Written by artist Nicola on 13 February 2004

Journey Tales

Following a warm-up the group recall the visits to the Lagan Island last week and we begin to find ways of representing the landscapes with our own bodies. A new exploration begins as the group negotiate the canal, trees, boulders, sculptures and trails finding new ways each time to approach, move through and hide. All of this will be useful when we return to make movement pieces which the group will record using digital video. Later we imagine a journey to our favourite place, real or imagined and bring it to life for a partner. Our places are reflections of our life, places we live, visit, remember, have heard of or dreamt about.

Space meets Place

Written by artist Nicola on 13 February 2004

We returned to the Lagan Island site to continue our adventure this time sensing more about the landscape. We listen for sounds, close and distant, and together sense the movements of weather, water, land, sky and light. We find our attention drawn to many different things. The view finder helps to focus our attention on one place and we can discover what is close or far away from our place with ease. Each person takes back one mental picture of a favourite place today and spends time on their return recalling the experince through drawing and writing.

In the afternoon we are exploring spaces and places within the gym, all of us drawn to one spot or another. A task is set for immediate investigation of the chosen spot, some being much more constrained than others. The results are observed by the group. Later we imagine being in a large room, without any obstacles to get in our way and move in response to this image. The results are quite different to our first task.

Residency Two begins!

Written by artist Nicola on 13 February 2004

St Joseph’s Primary School is situated opposite Lagan Valley Island which once played a significant role in Lisburn’s industrial past as the site of the Island Mill Spinning Company, famous for its production of linen thread. Following the end of production at the mill in 1983, the site was purchased by Lisburn Council and regenerated as an arts and civic centre. This site will play an important role in this residency as it becomes a focus for our explorations. This began today with the short journey across road and river with a look at the Island art trail. Unfortunatley rain forced us inside where we discovered Janet Perston’s prints illustrating the progression of redevelopment of the site. We returned outside and explored places noting sounds, sensations, colours and textures before returning to school.

Movement Mechanics

Written by artist Nicola on 20 November 2003

In our warm up this morning we were playing a ball game which we noticed weaved an invisible pattern in the air depending where in the circle we threw it. We decided to fix a pattern by remembering which person we threw the ball to. To make it more complex we introduced another ball reinforcing the same invisible pattern in the air and trying not to drop either one! There are plenty of possibilities here to explore next week.

After this we recalled our two movement responses to the Cambric Loom and Jacuard Card Machine. To assist in the recall and those absent last week, we listened again to the sound recording made during our visit to the Museum from Day 1 and as a last resort the video recording from last week to refresh a few hazy memories!

The class set up a very effective single file production line to perform their movement in turn. Later in the day we attemped to remember the Hieroglyphic images and the movement that that been created as a result of the positive and negative space exploration. This we managed to do without looking at any documentation, but I admit to being tempted at more than one stage…

Next week we look forward to making the invisible visible when we look at our weaving pattern in a new way and recalling for our open day the rest of the material in our movement bank.

Sound Shape Shadow

Written by artist Nicola on 13 November 2003

After our warm-up we went outside in the sunshine to play with our own shadows. We found it great fun to chalk around a shadow cast by someone standing still and we watched with great amusement when the shadows danced on the playgound.

After lunch the group recalled the sound from the Loom and Jacquard Machine (which we had spent time on earlier in the residency) so they could convert it into movement. We listened to the sounds with our eyes closed and carefully observed the responses our body wanted to make.

We set ourselves a challenge to create our short movement responses in ONE minute! However one minute soon became five but the group came up with very individual responses to the distinct sound of these machines. They were then recorded with a digital video camera and have been added to the bank of movement material we have collected so far.

Foot Maps

Written by artist Nicola on 6 November 2003

Following a review of some of the work documented on camera, the group recorded their very own footwork sequences made in response to the Foot Maps from last week. Before recording we experimented looking at levels, postioning and angles to decide what to record and where to place the camera. Each group recorded themselves from their chosen a camera position having practised and refined their foot map sequence.

Throw some shapes

Written by artist Nicola on 6 November 2003

Today we recapped our movement phrases from last week and added the positive and negative movements together. We observed each group in action and made some drawings of the shapes we saw and discussed what else these drawings and shapes reminded us of.

One group’s shapes reminded the class of the following; toes, mountains, a bike ramp, stairs and the evolution of man

Later we made Foot Maps of the initial images from each group, swapped them around and created a whole new step pattern from them. More of this next wek

Negative Five

Written by artist Nicola on 27 October 2003

Today we explored more movement based on hieroglyphics. In groups of five the class recreated a set movement sequence concentrating on finding the stillness of the image. We had five images to play with and made a running sequence of them in the gym.

Later in the day we introduced the idea of negative space, a choreographic tool used to create movement where you look at the space surrounding the mover and another mover finds a way of occupying part of it.

After playing around with ideas each group had their positive and negative images which were taken outside into the sunshine in the playground and were run in sequence. Finally we took just one of the initial positive images and with it took five negative movement steps away using the other groups in turn as movers. As if this weren’t enough to remember, the group challenged themselves to reverse the negative phrases resulting in the final image being the initial positive one!

Make some noise

Written by artist Nicola on 16 October 2003

Day Two of the residency and St Joseph’s are making plenty of noise with inspiration taken from the sounds of the looms. The rhythm of one machine was copied using voice and clapping before introducing percussion. The groups then recorded their efforts on to mini-disc. Also today we began looking at different characters and people involved in linen history and created our own hieroglyphic pictures depicting people and process. All in all a busy (and noisy) day!

Museum Visit

Written by artist Nicola on 15 October 2003

Thursday 2nd October was the day St Joseph’s Primary 5 undertook the long trek to the Linen Museum, situated half a mile up the road from the school in Lisburn. Following an intense weaving workshop, the tour and exhibition left everyone with a greater understanding of the linen industry and the role the City of Lisburn played in it. The different sounds throughout the tour and exhibition caught everyone’s imagination including the time recorder to clock in and out of work to the noisy machinery upstairs. We hope in our next session together to make a soundscape by recreating and recording some of the noises and rhythms using our own bodies and percussion instruments.