Lines of Repair

Coventry Cathedral, Rising Café (From the Rubble), UK 2015 
Commissioned by DECODA, supported by Arts Council England

We don’t necessarily think to turn to choreographers to look for ways of living together more kindly. However the writing of Simone Forti (USA), Michael Klein (Ireland), Moshe Feldenkreis (Germany /UK) and Deborah Hay (USA) – dance artists working in the field of experimental movement – is full of thoughtful wisdom for how we might encounter the world and each other more gently and less knowingly. 

A commission from DECODA UK for Coventry Cathedral’s café space offered the opportunity to make a small series of posters depicting objects from a rehearsal space accompanied by fragments of text from choreographers’ writings. The objects are part of the everyday of a creative making process: a cable to power a projector; a blanket and pegs to create a space within a space; some tape that marked a pattern on the floor; some elastic that was left over from fixing a garment and a fan that was used to create some movement of air for a theatrical effect.

Coventry City was heavily bombed during 1940 and its Catholic cathedral was destroyed. However rather than clear away the ruins of the building, the City’s provost decided to rebuild the cathedral in connection to the ruins. The Rising Café (from the rubble) is where visitors to the cathedral can take refreshments and the posters were placed in proximity to the café’s tables and at eye level to offer prompts for imaginative repair and human connection.