Jellyfish
Not cool to wear your heart on your sleeve? Overly sentimental? Tosh! This is a project I would like to shout about in a slightly evangelical way; it is, in my view, a model for the creation of art projects which will become hugely relevant in the years ahead. It was a reminder that often the only way to realise a project is to do it one's self and to beg (maybe not steal) but certainly borrow the materials to make it happen. The Jellyfish, which housed the Oikos Project, was the first of it's kind, a theatre constructed out of entirely recycled materials.
At the end of October Volunteers began dismantling the construction,a hundred and twenty seat theatre, designed by Martin Kaltwaser and Folke Koebberling . It had occupied and activated the Marlborough playground site on Union Street in Southwark for two months, hosting premiers of works by two play-writes, Simon Wu and Kay Ashead.
The plays explored the theme of ecological disaster, and the response of individuals to their resulting circumstances and showcased new work from established writers. The subject matter and form of construction were responses to what the company (Red Room)see as the three big issues confronting us now: over population, finite resources and a rise in world temperatures. Kay Ashead is already an award winning writer and in this powerful new piece, Protozoa, true to form, she tackles her subject with wit and poetry. The play focuses on two women rebuilding their worlds in a stripped bare, post apocalyptic condition. Simon Wu's Oikos, from which the project takes its title, is a thought provoking piece which examines the loss of material possessions in the event of a disaster and how this affects a family whose identity is largely based on the accumulation of such things.
Jellyfish came to fruition in the midst of the current mood of austerity and one can’t help feeling that they, (those who conceived it) got in just under the wire. There is no doubt the funding for such work will be much harder to come by in the next half decade. Particularly following the news that CABE, who as well as providing, sometimes unwelcome, design criticism, funded the Architecture Foundation - the main sponsor of the project.
The site a playground in Southwark was alive for the weeks of the project's occupation...with volunteers constructing, actors rehearsing and audience visiting...
The last few years have seen several, grant aided, visionary theatre projects which cross over into the architectural realm: Shunt’s production, Money, was a full scale renovation of an old industrial site, whilst the Hotel Medea occupied the Arcola theatre to present a re-working of the Medea trilogy. These projects can be thought of as being more in the tradition of site-specific theatre, whilst the jellyfish is closer to the current architectural trend for ‘pop-ups'. All take existing and often neglected sites and reconfigure or occupy them, generating activity where previously none existed or challenging our preconceptions about how a space can be used.
In the case of Jellyfish, the theatre was a temporary installation on the site of a playground in Southwark and the site, a rusted fenced enclosed patch of concrete usually more evocative of a wasteland than it’s intended function, was alive for the weeks of the project’s occupation, with volunteers, constructing, actors rehearsing and audience visiting.
The aesthetic of the project was driven by the nature of the objects donated, may of which gave enigmatic clues to their former existences...
Artistic Director Topher Campbell and The Red Room company sought to make the project engage with contemporary issues - taking the brave decision to construct it out of entirely recycled materials, in keeping with Red Room’s area of interest. The company also sought to engage the community, not just in the consumption of the end work but also the process of making it; so,for example, the water bottles which add dashes of colour to the timber structure were decorated by local primary school children, people were invited to contributed objects and and the theatre itself was built by volunteers. The aesthetic of the project was therefore driven by the nature of objects donated, many of which gave enigmatic clues towards their former existences. Thus the building is a kind of collage of projects past.
Re-using materials and relying on contributed labour is not new to the arts but this project took the ethos of re-using to such an extreme that it can lay claim to being the country's first entirely recycled theatre. As such, perhaps it should be considered a model for projects in the age of austerity. Although conceived on the edge of the boom it was intended to shift our focus towards a time of less than plenty and it seems such a time may, a least temporarily, already be with us.
Part of The Discussions on Film Blog series
Background Image-Janet Cardiff's The Forty Par Motet in Venice
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