Berliner

I'm in the queue for permission. Julia is beside me, on a long old-fashioned wooden bench in the town hall (Rathaus) in Schöneberg, Berlin. We are queueing for a form that means we are officially "here". Without the correct documentation we aren’t legal citizens. We've been told to come at least an hour before the doors open because the line can get very long. 

Schöneberg Town Hall is most known for a visit by JFK in 1963, when he made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. The crowd of Berliners hanging desperately onto his words filled the plaza around the town hall. The reason for long queues today is that Berlin is a more-than-popular destination, it's famously become a place of safety, a haven, for refugees, fleeing the vicious wars in the Middle East.

It's not a happy queue. To be without rights is a limbo: even with my cosy (pre-Brexit) EU citizenship, a safe home, secure life, I feel uneasy. People sit quietly, with carefully blank faces. I wonder why they are here, what their stories might be? A man in a bright sports coat mumbles to himself and gesticulates angrily, worrying away at some troublesome idea.

We’d been told to come an hour early, to improve our chances. As I look back more people are collecting at the end of the line. Instead of 25 people we are suddenly 50. The door of Room 116 opens and a young clerk ushers us to the reception desks. We apologise for our bad German and ask if the conversation can be in English. He nods, apologises in turn: "Unfortunately we have many people who want this piece of paper. We cannot offer you an interview until January."

That's in two months time. Julia and I look at him aghast. And then we are handed a very big slice of bureaucratic sunshine. One of his co-workers mutters something and he says: "Because we are just starting this morning, my colleague says we can give you an unplanned appointment in 10 minutes time."

We leave 20 minutes later clutching our fresh-stamped permits. Now there are 100 in the queue, spilling back out through the door and into the echoing corridor of the Rathaus. 100 quiet, careful faces, all hoping.

Heaven-Proof House is a poetry project based in Berlin, devised by Philip Davenport from arthur+martha CIC and supported by the British Council and Arts Council England. The project continues the arthur+martha strand of international work with marginalised people, connecting across borders and boundaries. 

QUIET PLEASE: homeless protest at Manchester Central Library

Homeless protestor on the steps of Manchester Central Library

Phil writes:

There's a cluster of tents around our very grand Central Library in Manchester and a cluster of people gathered tight around the entrance. It's one of the most loved buildings in the city and has been for generations. But right now, it is the site of a harsh scuffle. The Homeless Rights of Justice MCR group are campaigning here for homeless rights. The tents outside the Library and Town Hall are a protest camp in the style of the Occupy movement. The tents are tied to traffic bollards, to secure them in this concrete environment. They seem frail, flapping and billowing in the wind, among towering office buildings. And there's yelling from the Library entrance.

"We're raising awareness about homelessness in Manchester. We're shouting out to the Council, but so far all they've done is evict us two times. Now they've blocked our access to the Library, we can't even use the toilets. And these buildings are the place we need to go for homeless assessment..." (Joseph, homeless protestor)

Two little gangs of people move back and forth in the Library doorway: two policemen and two security guards facing off ten or so homeless protestors, two observers, and in between, members of the public, squeezing through into the building.

"I'm a homeless, disabled woman and now they're denying me access to the toilets in the Library. I feel victimised, discriminated against. I'm a rough sleeper, I get guys coming onto me every night. The Council? They need homeless people because they take the money off the homeless charities, they get the profits. There's cuts for homeless services everywhere... they're getting shut down." (Homeless protestor, no name given)

Steven Peers of the Green and Black Cross project, which has been observing the protest with an eye to the legality of the security and policing: "We believe this is a breach of human rights, it's degrading for people, having restricted access to toilets. Being denied access to a public building - since when have public buildings become private? Seems a legal grey area. G4S (security) are excluding people, they seem to be misusing this court order which does not specify these measures."

The arthur+martha project The Homeless Library is also attempting to raise awareness of homelessness, to tell a history that's been ignored. I asked protestor Joseph what reason he'd give for homeless people being overlooked. "In this society we're in, people have to have a house, a job, and children. Over and over. They're puppets. Because we're homeless, we don't do that. They don't know what to do with us. We're looked at like the pigeons, the vermin of the human race. But I am a person too." (Joseph, homeless protestor)

Standing to one side, a woman is leaning against one of the vast columns outside the Library smoking a cigarette, quietly watching. I ask her if she's involved and she shakes her head: "I moved to Germany from here. Don't see homelessness like this over there. I think government here has lost sight of its priorities. And the first priority should be looking after people. I know several homeless single parents who can't get a council house and the rents on flats are too high. I see more and more people sleeping in doorways. What the way forward is, I don't know. Homeless people can protest, but this needs wider support - they need everyone's help." (Onlooker, no name given)

And she goes back inside the Library. And I go into a cafe to write this. And the protestors are still there, outside.

The arthur+martha project The Homeless Library is the first ever attempt to write a history of homelessness in Britain. It includes not only individual testimonies, but also poetry and art, giving it a shape like no other. Look for more related blogs on this site, or befriend us on FaceBook.

For further information on organisations referenced in this blog, go to:

Homeless Rights of Justice mcr FaceBook page

https://greenandblackcross.org

Wikipedia on the "Anonymous" organisation http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

http://www.g4s.com


The Homeless Library is a project devised by arthur+martha to document the heritage of homelessness using interviews, artworks, poetry. It is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Someone to watch over me

Above: the ancient arts, at Hargreaves Foundry. Photo Claire Griffiths.

Phil has been working with Blackpool Arts for Health on pieces for the new mental health facility The Harbour, which is being built on the edge of Blackpool. Over the next few days, we will post some excerpts from Phil's Blackpool blogs from this summer and autumn. A complete set of the blogs and photos is at the Blackpool Arts for Health blogsite.

Phil writes:

Seeing molten metal being cast is both wondrous and terrifying, like visiting a caged volcano. It's become a rare vision in this country, so a chance to observe traditional casting is a gift, even if it's a slightly scary one.

Today we visited the Hargreaves Foundry in Halifax where cast iron artefacts have been made since the 19th Century - and where Anthony Gormley's sculptures are constructed in this 21st Century. Walking around the foundry on a research trip with the Smart Arts group and our guides Andy Knight and Richard Hall was an amazement. M commented, in his languid way, "This may be the coolest thing I have ever seen." Except of course it's hot: molten metal like poured light, showering sparks (A saw them as dying fairies) heat shattered moulds, sand burnt at temperatures so high that it becomes crude glass. 


Aside from the eye-catching fireworks there's something deeper at work. G put his finger on it best I think: "It's almost religious, the feeling in here, going back to the ancient rituals. The mould is made and then broken. The sand is burnt away like old habits, the old life, old patterns. Then we cast the new."

The word 'cast' can mean many things. Many of our Smartarts group are recovering from difficult times and their art-making is about casting off the old skin and allowing renewal. We cast a spell, cast dice, cast runes, cast plaster, cast aside, fore-cast the future. There is a well-known kinship between making things in metal and casting ancient magic, which is among other things a sort of wish fulfilment. Art is also a form of making wishes come true. O picked up this thread: "What would I create? Happiness? What would that be? A smile, a touch, a feeling, who knows? A longing for the past, my past? A chance to start again. How far back would I have to go to start again? Perhaps as far as birth, a newborn."

Art is often dismissed as an add-on to life, as opposed to the important things like money, career and efficiency. Actually, art-making predates all of those activities and I often wonder if that makes it higher up the scale of priorities than we realise. The necessities of life were invented first.

For all its ancient associations, Hargreaves foundry isn't a museum, it is a thriving contemporary producer with a world-class reputation. Because the standard of making is so high, it attracts artists with very specialist requirements as well as corporate clients. The most notable artist customer is Gormley, who has worked with Hargreaves for a couple of decades. The site is dotted with Gormley pieces in various stages of completion. Over it all, hanging from the ceiling of the storage warehouse is a Gormley-size version (i.e. 6 foot 2 inches) of his iconic Angel of the North. A big chunk of rust-colour iron, it looks tough, yet gentle. A totem and a guardian.

Above: Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North, man-sized, at Hargreaves Foundry

O again: "Scrap is melted into liquid, it has power, energy you can feel. It's poured into a cauldron where it bubbles, the smell of sulphur in the air, Hubble bubble. It's held in a ladle, like golden sun... It does become, of course, hard as iron and cold, yet the coldness doesn't detract from its beauty and tenderness... the feeling an angel watches on. I have a thought - it'd be nice if  somewhere, somehow an angel watches over all of us."

Photographs of the Smartarts visit to Hargreaves Foundry in Halifax can be seen at the Blackpool Arts for Health blogsite (the photos were taken by Claire Griffiths). We would particularly like to thank Richard and Andy at the foundry for their kindness, hospitality and hard hats. For more information about Hargreaves, go to http://www.hargreavesfoundry.co.uk

"Memory Tree"

The Dark Would Volume 3 language art exhibition curated by Philip Davenport from arthur+martha opens 3rd May at Bury Art Museum 10am-5pm. There will also be a discussion event and reading at 2pm at Bury Met, as part of the international Text Festival.

     Installing "Memory Tree" by Rosmarie Waldrop at The Dark Would Volume 3

The Dark Would anthology was edited by Philip last year, bringing together people who use language to make art - poets, text artists, performance artists, musicians... 

Currently being installed at Bury Art Museum is the third "volume", an exhibition that Philip has curated, based on The Dark Would. He also worked with local schoolchildren to make a soundtrack and has included a piece made during arthur+martha sessions with members of a dementia drop-in in Bury.

The exhibition is themed around the translation of memory into language. In it, you'll find an evocation of childhood in Nazi Germany, visual poems made by fixing a biro to a computer mouse, a text adapted from the Financial Times to become birds, a film/song for the mythic killer Long Lankin, Rorschach butterflies to commemorate dead poets - and a text/art work based on family trees.

This last piece was made during arthur+martha workshops at Pinfold Lane dementia care day centre in Bury, which were supported by Bury Art Museum. It is an ongoing strategy by arthur+martha to exhibit work made in our projects alongside major international practitioners. 

The exhibition previews Friday 2 May, 7pm as part of the launch of the Text Festival and new Sculpture Centre at Bury Art Museum. There will be a discussion about issues raised by The Dark Would on Saturday 3 May 2pm at Bury Met, chaired by Philip with a panel of derek beaulieu, Caroline Bergvall, Marton Koppany and Ron Silliman. The discussion will begin with a poetry reading from Ron Silliman.

Exhibition contributors: arthur+martha, derek beaulieu, Maria Chevska, Paula Claire, Mike Chavez-Dawson, Matt Dalby, Maria Damon, Philip Davenport, SJ Fowler, anatol knotek, Darren Marsh, Tamarin Norwood, Wang Jun, Rosmarie Waldrop, Richard Wentworth and Eric Zboya. 

 

Canadian poet derek beaulieu making Helvetica, his letraset work for the exhibition.

a quiet veil

TWEET FROM ENGELS, a long poem written in collaboration with over a hundred homeless people describing their lives, was projected onto the walkway between Manchester Town Hall and Central Library, on the night of 29 March. The projection was part of the Lets Go Global organisation's event Big Digital Project, which gathered together artists from all over Greater Manchester.

yr hand = comfort a warm feeling in th pit of yr stomach // a glow in th mind nice + toasty 

#krystof

It was both moving and unsettling, seeing a poem made of so many moments of intimacy become gargantuan. The tweet-size verses are shot through with sadness and confusion - it was somehow shocking to read them scaled up to the size of a building. And yet, how strong they seemed, how honest. Homelessness very often is accompanied by lack of shelter - and many homeless people go to libraries in winter. Perhaps appropriate then that Central Library, a place of warmth and words, should be the site for this work, veiled in this poem.

panic attacks // back 2 th wall // got 2 draw a quiet veil 

#brion

A second projection sited in one of the Town Hall
windows, scrolling the poem on a loop.

TWEET FROM ENGELS is the first section of the ongoing epic arthur+martha twitter poem ALBION. The second section, made with young offenders, is currently being tweeted from https://twitter.com/tweetfromengels. ALBION is constructed from the voices of marginalised people in the UK, including young offenders, people with a dementia diagnosis, homeless people, and others. This 'chorale' of diverse people has been gathered from arthur+martha sessions over 5 years. Experimental poets in the UK, Canada and the USA including Tom Jenks, Steve Giasson, Geof Huth, Rebecca Guest, Steve Emmerson, and others have helped to edit and tweet ALBION.

1 person I can trust // myself // I rely on chaos 

#jackson

arthur+martha often use avant garde approaches to writing and art making that allow self-expression and a public platform to people who can be left on the edges. Our work tries to bring the voices and visions of overlooked people into dialogue with wider society. This event is one in a series of arthur+martha exhibitions that have employed large-scale display techniques in public space.

Id giv anything 4a #normal life 50 million id turn it down u cant buy a normal life 
#lev

We are particularly indebted to Andy Mckeown, Peter Walker and David Harper from externalGalleries who lent their skills so generously to all the groups involved, co-devising and editing many of the projections. We'd also like to thank Naomi Whitman at Let's Go Global and Laura Murphy at Stockport MBC for kind support and advice.

yr hand = comfort 
#krystof

NEWS FROM THE “UNDERCLASS”

Press Release

"walk past a restaurant // smile @ them thats th mask // I wont let them see me hungry #rainer" (Tweet from Engels)

Tweet From Engels an 'anti-epic' poem made from encounters with homeless people by arts organization arthur+martha, will be projected onto the side of Manchester Town Hall on 29 March 2014.

The poem was originally tweeted and will now be projected as part of the Big Digital Project, alongside work from many Manchester communities.

The 'verses' are snapshots in text of homeless lives, in all their moods - joy, terror, humour, resilience, anger. Famously, Engels wrote about the harshness of 19th Century Manchester; people today who live a comparable existence are the homeless. The poem imagines a dialogue between Engels and the homeless people of Manchester. Interspersed through the poem is found material from Engel's correspondence with Marx, and his classic The Condition of the English Working Class.

"my friend got murdered ystrday backdoor open lights on = stoppd // that was th last time I // spoke 2 her he batterd her again #rai"

projected poem as part of the Stockport Big Digital event

Sound recordings made with homeless people in Stockport, Manchester and Bury will accompany the event.

The sound recordings were made at various homeless drop-ins: The Wellspring at Stockport, The Booth Centre and The Big Issue in the North in Manchester.

The Big Digital Project has been organised by the Let's Go Global organisation. TWEET FROM ENGELS is part of a wider epic poem, Albion, made in collaboration with marginalised people in the UK.

Albion has been funded by the NALD.

Carers and sharers

Making Memories

Oldham

Phil writes

We're coming to the end of our run of workshops at a dementia drop-in at Royton, running sessions convened and observed by psychologist Polly Kaiser. We have had some fascinating feedback from participants - below is an example of a very thoughtful response. Because group dynamics are crucial for folks dealing with dementia, who often feel vulnerable, discussion about the atmosphere of the group is at the core of this. We were also interested by the careful distinction between 'carers' and 'sharers' at the end of this comment. Although our work frequently has a therapeutic outcome, we draw a distinction between our role of artists and that of carers or therapists - but we've never managed to do it so succinctly as in the following quote.

Participant Comment

The danger is of service-users feeling embarrassed and if you can overcome it. People feel embarrassed by the condition, dementia - but the atmosphere in this group means people feel comfortable and valued. You're not encroaching into dangerous territory if you keep things fairly light, if the tone is introduced with a light touch. There's a lot of skill managing a group like this, group dynamics is a science of itself.

People can be shut off by embarrassment, of their own volition. There's a stigma with mental health and society needs to address that. But I find activities like this therapeutic. People feel comfortable, not threatened, at ease with others. It engenders a feeling of confidence and fellowship. The nice thing about this group is that people are affected by a common theme - and others' duty is sharing (not caring) and improving quality of life.

Participant in dementia drop-in group, Oldham

13 February 2014

wedding ring

We're working in partnership with Gallery Oldham to help rethink their reminiscence boxes as tools to stimulate art, writing and shared reflection.

Philip writes:

Our afternoon session at Werneth Lodge on 13 February was with a group of older people with a wide range of abilities. We tried a writing technique that's often served us well when there are many voices to accomodate and a number people have difficulty writing. It's a trick that I inadvertently invented when we were working in Stockport, training a student. Two people make notes of a conversation with a participant or participants. The notes are then read back line by line, each reader alternating. This creates an echoing effect, but with lots of variants, because no two people will write exactly the same notes from a conversation. In fact when Lois and I tried it at the workshop in Werneth Lodge, our notes were remarkably different, but the following poem gives a sense of this method.

The conversation was stimulated by Lois' own wedding memorabilia.



wedding ring




white wedding pink flowers

very long time ago

a garter



married a long time

a helluva long time

ago

a bit of a scent

the faint scent of cloves

we choose to forget

a wedding ring

a buttonhole the men wore

the bride a bouquet

a long white dress

wore white

at All Saints

he a carnation

and a party after

and a couple of drinks

a garter to

hold your stockings up

hold your socks up

to the knee

plenty of confetti

nice to be wed in a church

everyone went

something borrowed

something old

we spoke latin

pink roses

carnations a spray

white wedding, pink flowers

a long time ago

my hair mother washed

put rollers in, that was it

washed, curled around

a rose petal heart-shaped

pink

a garter with little bows

always someone to take a photo

everybody went to a wedding

with their garters

a knees-up

I remember mine quite well

jump over the table

white wedding, nice

weather a long time ago

always somebody there to

take a photograph

a corsage, a buttonhole

my first stockings

nervous

a nervous wreck

four older sisters all married

but me

a do at the pub

father watching

he didn't like the beer

so we went running round the corner

a gold shoe, a wedding gift

a little tear, one, two, three

Bill's mother, my mother

white pillars

oh the wedding cake, mother-made

two-tier, little white pillars

a cake tin, keep them locked in

for christenings

a ring of roses keep them tight

with icing

two little figures on top

wearing white

no hanky panky beforehand

a wedding ring

a wedding band

playing

1954

had a boy in 55

he's married now

my son has

got his life and

so it goes round.





Group Poem

13 Feb 2013

Werneth Lodge

Yarn bombing

Yarn bombing otherwise called guerrilla knitting or graffiti knitting has hit my local town of New Mills, Derbyshire with a splash of colour and laughter. The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S with Texas knitters trying to find creative ways to use leftover and unfinished knitting projects... 

Many shop windows have been adorned with knitting, with displays of knitted fruit, cakes, bikes and sausages in associated shops.

This wonderful knitted graffiti has been made by the Woolly Wanderers, and is showing between the 10th and the 25th September. You can find out more about them at http://newmills-woollywander.blogspot.com/

Used to say I’m running away but I never actually got round to it

Ryan's seated self portrait

The installation of the Bubble Project pieces was both a change up in gear and a race towards the final conclusion of the work. Installation is always a process in which the artist has one eye on the clock and this was no exception. We had only two hours with the group to decide where the pieces would work best in our chosen location the indoor market. Lois, Derek and I then had a further four hours to wallpaper the life-size pieces in position, fine-tune the placement of the training shoes and postcards and find a home for the bottled poems.

The rush is sometimes a valuable one because it cuts out dithering and requires intense focus. Our group all rose to the occasion, scouting out the best sites for their work, helping to blutac them on the walls, shuffling pieces around several locations until the best height and angle was found. Finding the right space, the right moment for a piece is as fine a craft as the making and can transform work utterly, for good or ill.

Ryan's action man' self portrait

Ryan was as ever afire with ideas and enthusiasm – he steered the placing of several pieces, cackling gleefully as he did so. 

Luke's Fireheart

Luke dived deep into the whole process, working with Derek to build up bits of bric-a-brac around his ‘portrait’, choreographing the space to great effect. 

Lauren's Egyptian self

Lauren was decisive and direct, as she is. 

Len's jumping self portrait

Len found an excellent point for his basketballing self to leap into space. Finally, Kitty positioned her pair of contrasting ‘selves’ so that they linked but weren’t visible at the same time – one introvert, one extrovert. She also tried out arrangements of the training shoe text piece and the star poems. The works became powerful in the environment, it was a living frame for them. As we glued and cut and pinned, the excitement ran between us.

Kitty's Rabbit brain

The fact that the market is a hangout for local teenagers put the group on their mettle – they seemed determined to make the best of their pieces, especially when being judged by their (possibly unforgiving) peers.  The acid test of public reaction can sting, but it also brings insight – the perspective of others. As it happened, all of the teenagers we spoke to were enthusiastic about the work (‘Good things aren’t they?’). The pieces ask questions about how we care for each other as humans – and if the cost of caring is the freedom to be yourself. And freedom is a favourite subject for all adolescents everywhere.

Lauren and Lauren's falling figure

A particular hit with the audience were the training shoes – half-drawn, half-written customised trainers. On one set of training shoes is written the title of the show, a passing comment made by one of the young carers -  ‘Used to say I’m running away but I never actually got round to it.’ I’m so glad that the group stayed the distance with us to make this work. I felt burstingly proud of them. When we said our farewells, it seemed impossible to me to explain how far I thought they’d travelled on this creative adventure with us – and how much inventiveness, humour, courage and sweetness they’ve shared.  

used to say I'm running away but I never actually got round to it

More photos at http://www.flickr.com