A love letter in sound

Not your average love letter, no fancy words, no paper soaked in perfume, no protestations of undying commitment, just sound. Ordinary sound, everyday sound, ignored sound. The sound of silence... This was the focus of a very successful workshop afternoon on Saturday 14th April, in and around the Cerith Wyn Evan's exhibition. I took groups of up to 4 people on a silent soundwalk around the De La Warr so that they could express their love of the building through attention and listening. Here is the one of the binaural recordings that I made, please listen on headphones.

misty blue with eerie grace !

What a lovely spring Saturday afternoon ! With over a hundred words and phrases gleaned
from Cerith Wyn Evans favourite poems and song lyrics we had plenty to play with. The building was buzzing with lots of people glancing at and toying with our collection words. Although the idea of composing poetry clearly worried some people, the idea that they could use someone else's words seemed much less scary and much more manageable.
Using the actual words to compose a bit of verse seemed to work best with some people using the window pens to add the odd word that they really needed. Suggestions of forms to follow included limericks and Haiku which some people did have a go at, but mostly they were happy to compose their own bits of free verse and blank verse. Some examples can be found below:

Falling dust
drawn away with
eerie grace. by S.Smith

Brightness around
light
brightness around sea. by Lana

Everybody out of today
looking for a better tomorrow
to find that the best day
was yesterday. by Issy

Furrow brow agony
pure eyes beam

white withered finger
come in baby

Pampered poodle come alive
a picture frame. by Fernie

Shiny Sparkles
Twinkle in my
Face
It's Pretty

magic corridors
towards misty blue
on
liquid garden. by Olivia Kennedy

Magic mirrors reflect
the moon. by Milly

Infinite timeless day
sighing white burning. by Anne

Be up a purple path sky
with little angles fluttering. by Marcie Garwell

Speed pools spray
sweet angle climbs
faithful
your upward golden rose

Where to, here in the garden

Magic corridors goin up and
up so scary scaring you
can not believe your eyes. by Molly

October hillows where
wondering sun reborn comes. by MC

Eleven moons and
weeping eyes help heavy
sleep. by SD

Sky
believe
in
Better. by Toby

By the end of the afternoon we had over 40 pieces of poetry in various forms adorning the windows - so well done to all those who took part.

Dreams of De la Warr

Drawing on some of the themes in the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibition, storyteller and composer Daniel Marcus Clark found out what lies beyond this world by collecting accounts and drawings of peoples dreams. These were compiled to create a dream map and a recorded piece which can be found here: Cerith Wyn Evans Dream track one

The accounts were beautifully soundtracked by Cerith's flute piece incarnation installation.

Participants also drew pictures of their dream landscapes on acetates, which were collated into a map of the dream realm.

A magical day!

Cerith in Colour

To mark the opening of the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibition - Lift the Lid was a creative celebration of colour and light. Using lightboxes and the sun - we made columns and sculptures - drew with cellophane - until everything was glowing.

The Cerith Wyn Evans Poetry Jukebox

To celebrate the start of the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibition, we turned Gallery Two into a Poetry Jukebox this Saturday. The Poetry Jukebox is a unique live literature event, specially developed by De La Warr artist and writer Wendy Ann Greenhalgh for the season. The Jukebox allows Pavilion visitors to choose a poem on the theme of light, beauty and heat from our instant, online poem hunter - and then hand it over to Wendy and her team - for a personalised, live and unrehearsed performance inside the gallery.

Visitors picked poems as diverse as the beacons in the first poem of AE Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad' and Ken Nesbitt's light fearing father in 'I Think My Dad is Dracula!' And we ended the day with a performance of Cecelia Weir's 'Lights On, Lights Off' as the giant columns of Cerith Wyn Evans' S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E slowly turned themselves off and on.

"It really works," said one visitor. "They say a picture's worth a hundred words, but sometimes it's hard to know what something's saying, but the poems helped to say it."

The lyricism of Cerith Wyn Evans' work and the medium of poetry, are certainly a great match, and Saturday's Poetry Jukebox was very popular. How often do you get your own personalised poetry reading - performed just for you - after all? We'll be running the Poetry Jukebox again on Saturday May 19th - so if you missed it this weekend, then come along and join us next time. This event isn't just for poets, writers ... or grown-ups! Bring your kids along and let them choose a poem too!

Many thanks to poet Jac Cattaneo, who also joined Wendy to give readings on Saturday.

Cerith Wyn Evans opens

Cerith Wyn Evans' at DLWP exhibition opened last weekend to crowds of visitors and critical acclaim.

With a special opportunity to see Wyn Evans' new 'firework' piece, And if I don’t meet you no more in this worldThen I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one And don’t be late, don’t be late, followed by music by DJ Princess Julia, a great evening was had by all and the Pavilion's Gallery spaces were revealed transformed.

Employing Cerith Wyn Evan’s ongoing investigation of architecture as a starting point and specifically curated as a response to the De La Warr Pavilion, this exhibition consists of three major installations and smaller new works dispersed throughout the building. Taking the entire Pavilion as an opportunity for installation, including our two gallery spaces and the roof-terrace, the exhibition also provides the impetus for a wider programme of related live art, music, performance and film during the season.

Visitors will see the De La Warr Pavilion’s Gallery spaces stripped back so that they are undivided for the first time. With all of the windows revealed, the installation in Gallery 1 explores the relationship between manmade and natural light, returning the building’s structure to its original purpose – as a space for visitors to experience and enjoy. Moving up through the building, Wyn Evans' recent spectacular light/heat column installation, S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E ('Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…') 2010, is installed in Gallery 2 to create an intensely glamorous environment with toxic overtones.

Described by the artist as “a love letter to the building”, the exhibition embodies recurrent themes within Evan’s art: code, language, text and an interrogation of aesthetics.

Cerith Wyn Evans in The Guardian (Exhibitionist: This week's art shows in pictures), 24 March: "In horror movies, flickering lights generally mean something supernatural. There's a similar fusion of language, electricity and yearning in Cerith Wyn Evans's art"

www.dlwp.com

Welcome To Bexhill

Young artists and their families joined us for a special Lift The Lid session this Sunday - as we made a giant model of Bexhill.

We made the De La Warr Pavilion itself, complete with a seagull on the roof!

Accrington Park - with flowers, ponds, ducks, tadpoles ...

Swings ...

... and trees with singing birds in them.

And we made...

Roads and railway tracks...

Shops...

Railways and trains...

And police stations and fire stations and schools and hospitals.

Finally we made the Bexhill sea and the things we find in it...

Everything from Sailing Boats...

...to whales!

Lift The Lid was hosted this month by DLWP artist Wendy Ann Greenhalgh. Thanks to volunteers Ben and Jehan and all the amazing young architects, town planners, engineers and artists who took part. Lift The Lid sessions happen the first Sunday of every month from 2-5pm. Join us for the next one!