small ritual

hyperbolic crochet coral reef

and now for something completely different. back in the summer, the hyperbolic crochet coral reef made an appearance in the hayward and the royal festival hall. my photos of the stuff in the festival hall - they wouldn't allow photographs of the hayward stuff by the original creators, which seems strange for a collaborative all-join-in project. the crochet techniques are discussed on the website - definitely one for the grace knitting group! also for the modular altar pieces - give everone a knitted coral, and the altar is a fabric reef to put them on.

contamination

now here's a church service to freak out unsuspecting visitors. grace's october service, called 'contamination', explored how humans have always attempted to achieve spiritual purity through rules and rituals, in order to approach god. so visitors were greeted by people in gas masks and paper overalls, who quizzed them for various 'contaminating' items before they were allowed in:

grace - contamination 1 from steve collins on Vimeo.

the first section explores some of the issues in history and religion [first clip is from 'protect and survive'], and then we head into the church [donning surgical masks]:

grace - contamination 2 from steve collins on Vimeo.

after the doctor who clip [from 'the empty child'] we play 'purity pairs', which shows that biblical ideas on clean and unclean were not static:

grace - contamination 3 from steve collins on Vimeo.

and then the service moves to its climax with the torn curtain and the taking off of our own righteousness:

grace - contamination 4 from steve collins on Vimeo.

and here's ozzie the disco dog in the cafe afterwards [it's so lynda can see him in the dark]

disco dog from steve collins on Vimeo.

modular altar as representation of the gathered community

some new thoughts regarding the modular altar:

each person in the community has their own piece,
so you can see who is in the room by the pieces of the altar -
it is a readout of the gathering

each piece of the altar is a mark of belonging, a badge of membership for its owner
could there be a ceremony of membership when a piece is given?

what could the pieces be made of?

wood - sculptures, carvings, like chessmen
[if a chessboard symbolises war, what board symbolises community?]
metal - jewellery or components
ceramic - vessels, ornaments
glass - vessels, ornaments
knitted - though can’t contain bread/wine!
cuddly toys
candlesticks
toy cars, toy trains [could the board be a track?]
lego bricks
Bearbricks
Barbies??

could this stuff be second-hand [greener, symbolises redemption]?

family visit

went to grimsby and cleethorpes a couple of weeks ago for the first proper visit in five years. i wanted to see my wider family somewhere other than at funerals, especially since my aunt's sudden illness and death in the spring. that's my grandmother, father and his sister gone since 2005. i didn't want to blog about my aunt's death at the time. all this has changed the shape of the family considerably, and we're regrouping, so to speak, around a different set of connections. the children of my four cousins are all teenagers now, so there is another layer approaching adulthood. and the latest family addtion is my niece elisabeth, born last week!

as for the photos of grimsby and cleethorpes, there's nowhere deader than a seaside town on a weekday out of season in cold weather. it's easy to produce those empty scenes that i seem to specialise in ;) the traces of my childhood are still around, but fading. places go, or you lose them. it was strange and difficult to pass my grandmother's old house and not be able to walk in like the last and every other time. also hard to pass asda, where my aunt worked for so many years. and even now, my sense of scale for the town is that of a child, and i'm always nonplussed by how much shorter distances are than in my mind. the fact that i think of the old sea wall as curving over my head, gives you some idea.