LONDON'S BURNING: Reflections on Diversity, and the Symbolic with Julian Maynard Smith
In the third and final part of After Nyne's behind the scenes series supporting the London's Burning programme, we meet Julian Maynard Smith, Artistic Director of Station Opera House.
Making its return to London after travelling to more than fifteen cities worldwide, Dominoes plays a central part in the London's Burning programme.
The 26,000 breezeblocks dominoes will travel along London’s streets, squares, and buildings, occasionally disappearing and resurfacing, sometimes pausing for sculptural performances as the line threads its way through the path that the Great Fire of London took, linking our diverse community in a symbolic as well as physical chain of cause and effect.
Julian, what went through your mind when you first heard about the London’s Burning project?
The London’s Burning festival was an opportunity for us to bring the Dominoes project back to London after seven years, to renew our artistic acquaintance with my hometown and perhaps see how things have changed. It also offered the chance to work on a different scale than previously.
What convinced you to get involved?
The commissioners of the project, Artichoke, have a great reputation for managing large scale events in urban spaces, so we knew this event would be given the resources to ensure its success. There was a risk of course - the crowds that are commonly attracted to Artichoke events might swamp a project that despite its physical scale remains a fragile presence in the city and makes a very personal and human connection with the people who encounter it. But on reflection, we decided that we knew how to counter that problem, and, as the event is really about how a whole city is connected, it would be a pity not to take up the challenge.
How would you summarise Dominoes?
This version of Dominoes stretches through a large part of the City of London, a row of large dominoes that are in fact ordinary light-weight concrete building blocks that go through the different kinds of places that constitute the city – private and public spaces, offices, churches, shops, pubs, residential areas, old streets and new, courtyards and main thoroughfares. When the domino line falls, each one knocking the one in front, a chain of cause and effect is put in motion that threads through the whole city.
This is a connection that is playful and enjoyable in itself, but also brings into focus the fact that it is public art of a very important kind, having been made by hundreds of volunteers working together in a practical task, volunteers who come from widely different areas and backgrounds but collaborating on a single aim. This aim is to liberate the city for a day from the normal constraints it operates under, in order to make a domino line that plays with the city like a child would, if given the freedom: to stop the traffic, to go through windows, into private houses and other normally forbidden places, to wade through ponds and fountains, and to jump off buildings. In order to make this event happen, we need to find 600 volunteers for the day, who will come together and make a giant, public artwork celebrating the city.
How does this tie into the London’s Burning programme?
The domino line starts at the Monument, where the Fire of London started, and spreads out, splitting into three branches, that define how the fire spread, ending at points where it finally burned itself out.
One can imagine the logistical feat involved in bringing Dominoes to fruition. Give us some insight.
To achieve this project we have to work closely with Artichoke to close down roads across the whole of the City of London, and get permission to use buildings belonging to an enormous range of institutions and individuals, from backyards to expensive hotels. The 26,000 blocks have to be sourced, transported, distributed throughout the city, cleared away afterwards and disposed of (to worthy causes). We need to ensure health and safety is complied with and there are crowd control measures in place. We need to organise and train teams of people responsible for every detail of the route the dominoes will take, and the structures built out of them along the way. All the different actions need to be co-ordinated so they happen in sequence and on time. And this doesn’t even take into account things like publicity and press, financial budgeting etc.
Why is the London’s Burning programme relevant to modern-day London?
Each age has its catastrophic defining events. The London’s Burning festival is both a thoroughly enjoyable spectacle but is also a reminder that events can suddenly overwhelm an apparently stable and prosperous society and bring major destruction to the lives of the population.
Apart from your own project, what other events are you looking forward to seeing during London’s Burning?
I am familiar with several of the artists who are showing work, so I am particularly looking forward to one I don’t know, David Best’s London 1666.
In your opinion, what role does London play on the world arts stage?
London is home to the richest and most diverse artistic community in Europe, which produces amazing work across all cultural, social and economic strata.
Julian Maynard Smith is the Artistic Director of Station House Opera, creators of Dominoes. The public can watch Dominoes on Saturday 3rd September from 6.30pm. The domino run will start at Moorgate and, having split into three paths, end at The Barbican, Paternoster Square and St Mary’s Axe.
