WHERE THE HEART IS 2012 Theme Love and place Our theme was love, something we had heard so many stories about over the years. We wanted to link it to place. Not just the particular streets of East London, but also the locations we all associated with love: parks, home, cafés, churches, synagogues and mosques, pubs, community centres and kitchens. The many themes that grew from the project title were subdivided into six sub themes. Heartfelt (passion, faith, politics, women’s struggle) Heartache (loss and separation) Heart sparkle (romance, excitement) Heartstrings (family) Heart’s ease (friendship) Heartlands (belonging and place) The performance was presented as part of LIFT 2012 (London International Festival of Theatre) as part of their ‘London Voices’ weekend.
Art forms Audio, film and text In the first part of the project the group worked mostly from the Library archive material, and on an unpacking of their own concept of love, sharing many stories and experiences with each other. They were also introduced to filming each other and to hearing their own, recorded voices. Once they had decided on the sub-themes, they began work on the short silent films that were to be signposts for the audio walk that we were creating. This involved going out on location in small groups, which added richness to our mapping of stories onto the locality. The participants were all consulted following the rough edits of both sound and film, and sections were removed as a result of this consultation. One adult, for example, did not like the way that she appeared in one film; to her eyes she looked lost and confused, and she did not want this image to reinforce a sense of older people as lost and confused. A younger woman decided that her story could not be heard publicly, but asked for a copy of the audio to keep.
Page opposite: Tea table for audience and participants at the Library 64
Wild Wild Women, Sue Mayo