Performance for Dark and Stormy Night at the National Maritime Museum, London, on 24th July 2014.
This body of work brings together fictional and non-fictional accounts of various natural and technological disasters to explore our relationship with the natural world and the invented world. The traditions of storytelling that include the folk ballad, the broadside sheet and the disaster film are brought together in this body of work. Wax cylinder recordings and letterpress printed broadside sheets present tales of how we deal with hardship, death, destruction and survival. New disaster songs have been developed from existing melodies recounting animal attacks, floods, earthquakes, shipwrecks, plane crashes and collapsing bridges.
The performance included new video work filmed on the Queen Mary liner, Long Beach and the model used in the film The Poseidon Adventure, part of the collection of the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.
Thanks go to Sara Wajid and Katherine McAlpine from National Maritime Museum, London and Marifrances Trivelli and Emma Lang from Los Angeles Maritime Museum. Thanks go to musicians Jeremy Cusworth, Caroline Helbert and Jason Steel for their work on the songs included in this body of work. Thanks also go to Duncan Miller of the Vulcan Wax Cylinder Recording Company and Kelvyn Smith of Mr. Smith’s Letterpress Workshop. The project was made possible with funding from Arts Council England and Staffordshire University.
Images Courtesy of Nathan Morris.
The Poseidon or Why Did That Ship Turn Upside Down
