Issuu

WED 27 — SUN 31 OCT 2021 IPSWICH SUFFOLK

WELCOME TO

SPILL FESTIVAL — ON MEMORY

Welcome to SPILL, a festival of art and adventure, lovingly crafted in Ipswich. For five days this autumn we are presenting an exciting programme of events at locations across the town. You don’t have to be an art expert to join in and everyone is welcome.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE PAST TO LOOK TO

THE FUTURE

PAG E

LUM I N A RI U The theme of this year’s festival is Memory. What do we know from the past? What might we need to remember? How do we make sense of our lives and the world, especially during this unprecedented time, when all about us things seem upended? How can we continue to move forward with some hope in our sights? SPILL 2021 is about bringing the fun back and being together—safely—to enjoy some unforgettable shared experiences.

Front cover photo by Mary Catherine Newcomb Back cover photo by Guido Mencari

S 16 GE PA

GAIA

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IPSW IC CUIT PAGE 20 BIS

OMEBACK S C E

Wander through Luminarium down at the Waterfront, and experience a blast of pure colour bliss. Join us each evening on the Cornhill for performances of Chorus, a spinning mechanical spectacle of sound and light. Visit Gaia in the Town Hall and see our planet floating in three dimensions. Enter the immersive world of 4D cinema in Gone, Gone Beyond. Taste the Ipswich Biscuit. Watch a solstice sunrise in The Pagodas, and see the whole of the world in the SPILL Tarot Exhibition.

PE C

IA L 50 GE PA Live performances are taking place on the streets, in found spaces, in churches and in the Town Hall. There are broadcasts in cafés and a living archive of songs sung in public space. There is a fast paced, slow motion, free fall through discarded dances, and a cyborg called Jenny who leads an exodus from a ruined planet. There are women on roller skates, and women with cheese graters. There is The Comeback Special (which is very special indeed), a house built to share stories in, and a very noisy man in the Octopus Building. 5

This year we are doing things a bit differently. Audience capacities may be a little smaller for indoor events to ensure that we all stay safe whilst enjoying ourselves. And we will be following the latest Covid procedures come the festival.

AR F D,

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We have also taken the decision to offer the whole festival this year on a Pay What You Choose basis. You can purchase tickets to suit your own financial reality. If you can pay a little more, then please do—your support helps keep tickets accessible and available to all. As the wheel turns, so too does SPILL. This edition is the last one curated by SPILL’s founder Robert Pacitti, as he steps away after 15 years of running the festival. It also heralds the arrival of Robin Deacon as SPILL’s new Artistic Director. We both look forward to welcoming you to SPILL. This moment of transition has also led us to reflect on all previous editions of SPILL. We have a special strand in this year’s programme, bringing you exciting projects by individual artists invited back from our nine festivals to date, each representing a year in which they previously presented as part of SPILL. Here is where the past and the present coincide. We also remember this is the year that the world lost the hugely influential artist Raimund Hoghe, who died in May. Raimund presented the very first event in the inaugural SPILL Festival back in 2007. Raimund, Farewell is our homage to his greatness.

EP A PY R

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ABOUT US As has now become an Ipswich tradition, across the festival you are invited to make an offering of written bad news to our Pyre Parade Icon, housed this year in The Hold. Then join us on the Saturday night for The Pyre Parade itself, as the Icon makes its way noisily through town to Christchurch Park where—full of our bad news—it will be engulfed in flames, burning up the darkness and clearing space before winter. May it bring us all peace and wellbeing. Even though times are tough, as we gather for SPILL 2021, we hope to create meaningful memories together with you. Robert Pacitti + Robin Deacon SPILL Festival

Created by Robert Pacitti in 2007, SPILL Festival is an arts charity based in the Suffolk county town of Ipswich. Alongside SPILL, we also run a year-round programme of events, courses, groups and classes at our Think Tank studio building, which is also available for hire. More details can be found at spillfestival.com SPILL questions traditions of art and society and contains work some people may find challenging. We seek a culture of open discussion around this, so let’s talk it out—together we can change the world. 7

ACCESS Access is something we take very seriously as makers of SPILL Festival and we work year-round on how to best serve the diverse needs of all our guests and visitors. We always endeavour to provide an inclusive and welcoming offer in partnership with the various venues and cultural sites we work with. Every venue in SPILL 2021 has step-free access or lifts to relevant floors. This year, in addition to providing BSL interpretation at several events, SPILL Festival has also invited various community ambassadors to curate their own pathways through the festival based on the needs and interests of the people they serve. This year, we have continued to keep about one third of our events FREE to visit or participate in, whilst the rest is offered on a Pay What You Choose basis, a first for SPILL. Our All-Seeing Passes remain the best value for those wanting to see lots across the festival—and these are also available on a Pay What You Choose basis. When giving information about the festival, we aim to write or speak with clear and accessible language, with you (the reader or listener) in mind. We also believe in the importance of artists being given the opportunity to describe their own work in their own words, whether in this brochure, or in the exciting programme of artists talks we have organised for the festival. If you have questions or feedback regarding any of our access provisions, you can email access@spillfestival.com or call 01473 216 545. You can also keep an eye on spillfestival.com, plus our Facebook and Twitter feeds to see all the latest access announcements.

BSL INTERPRETED

WED 27 SPILL Launch Speeches and The Ipswich Biscuit, 17:00

THU 28 Action Stations SPILL Commissioned Artists Talk, 12:00 Baby Punk + Dr Babuyoka Laura Lulika and Hang Linton, 21:00

FRI 29 It’s All Good In The Hood SPILL Young Curators Talk, 12:00 Raimund, Farewell Mary Kate Connolly, 15:00

SAT 30 On Eden with Mary Catherine Newcomb and guests, 12:00

FESTIVAL PATHWAYS Here are some ways for you to enjoy the festival at its beginning, middle and end. Keep an eye on the SPILL Festival website for the latest updates on these and all the other works in the festival. We hope you have fun piecing together your own journey.

OPENING NIGHT At 17:00, we gather at St Stephen’s Church for festival opening speeches and the launch of The Ipswich Biscuit (page 20). Following the speeches, at 17:30 Olja Grubić’s Naked Life, the first of our SPILL OPEN performances, will kick off our live programme, also at St Stephen’s Church (page 23). Luke Jerram’s monumental Gaia will be an ongoing presence at the Town Hall (page 19) which you can enjoy before joining us at 20:00 on the Cornhill for Ray Lee’s Chorus, an installation of spinning light and sound (page 16). At 20:30, our opening night programme ends at the Town Hall with Wendy Houston’s 60 Acts, a solo performance piece that stretches the boundaries of theatre and dance (page 24).

SATURDAY AFTERNOON & THE PYRE PARADE Two of our SPILL Commissions can be experienced at St Clement’s Church in a special double bill—Moi Tran’s Shy God at 17:00 and Loula Yorke’s Atari Punk Girls at 17:30—are both explorations of music, sound and togetherness (pages 60 & 63). Saturday of SPILL 2021 is marked by the return of The Pyre Parade (page 64), which will start at the Hold at 18:00 before we collectively move through the centre of Ipswich to Christchurch Park where the Pyre Parade effigy will be lit and our bad news burned. After Burn is our post Pyre Parade gathering at St Stephen’s Church where we come together again at 19.30 for food, music and conversation to round off the evening (page 65).

SUNDAY ON THE WATERFRONT Sunday is the last chance to see the wonder and beauty of Architects of Air’s Albesila Luminarium (page 15). Remember, booking is required if you want to grab a slot (between 11:00 and 16:00). Look out for Jade Blackstock’s Mas’, an outdoor performance of resistance and emancipation along the Waterfront at 12:00 (page 68). From 16:00, pop down to Cult Café to sing for the future of the planet at Katie Dye’s Climate Grief Karaoke, our final SPILL OPEN work of the festival (page 72). At 18:00, join us at the iconic R&W Paul Silo as John Bowers creates strange reverberations with MemoryGrinderResonanceMachine (page 74). Then, as the festival draws to a close, we will gather at Cult Café from 19:00 to raise a glass to past and future memories at SPILL Festival Closing Drinks (page 75).

TICKETS For SPILL 2021, we are aiming to be environmentally friendly and have moved to a largely paperless ticketing system. We encourage you to buy your tickets online — e-tickets and instructions will be sent to you so you can choose to print your ticket at home, or show a QR code on your phone when you arrive. We have made our ticketing system even simpler to navigate this year. Choose from tickets for individual events, or an All-Seeing Pass to see everything in SPILL.

The All-Seeing Passes are the simplest and best value way to take a deep dive into SPILL. Once you buy your pass, we will be in touch to ask you what you want to see and we will book all the tickets for you.

Over a third of all events at SPILL are FREE to attend this year, and for the others, we are introducing a new ticket option for you—Pay What You Choose.

PAY WHAT YOU CHOOSE (PWYC) is a

TICKET OPTIONS ALL‑SEEING PASS PWYC — £50, £75 or £100 INDIVIDUAL TICKETS PWYC — £5, £10, £15 or £20

new way of buying tickets that we are introducing for the first time to SPILL. When you book on our website, all tickets and passes have a range of prices to choose from—you simply need to select the one that feels right for you. All tickets get you exactly the same experience, but by paying more, SPILL will be able to invest in bringing even more art to Ipswich in future festivals. As we are a not-for-profit charity, we guarantee that every penny you pay helps us in our mission to bring the best and most interesting art to your doorstep.

HOW TO BOOK We encourage you to book all your tickets in advance to avoid missing out on shows, many of which we know will be sell-outs. ONLINE spillfestival.com BY PHONE Call 01473 210 169 Box office hours are 10:00 – 17:00, Mon to Fri until 26 Oct, and 10:00 – 20:30 across the festival from 27 – 31 Oct. IN PERSON The main box office and information point during SPILL opening hours will be at the Town Hall, with a secondary box office specifically for Luminarium outside Cult Café.

Luminarium In adverse weather conditions it is possible that Albesila Luminarium will have to close for safety reasons. If you have booked at a time that we are unable to open the Luminarium, you will be offered a different time slot or a full refund. Important Booking Information To help you plan your festival experience, we try to ensure all events start on time. For most ticketed events, latecomers cannot be admitted, so please ensure that you are at the venue in plenty of time. All events in this brochure are correct at time of going to press. Any changes will be advised on our website, social media and ticket holders will be notified directly.

COVID + SPILL SPILL 2020 was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now the festival we’ve been planning since 2019 is finally here and the health, safety and care of audiences, artists, volunteers and staff is our priority. We will be following national guidelines on Covid-19 to be sure we are doing everything we can to deliver the festival as safely as possible. Each event may have different guidance depending on the size of a venue or nature of the work. In our planning for SPILL, we have partnered with all of our artists and venues to make sure your safety and enjoyment is central to the experience.

Guidelines change frequently, so up-to-date information and guidance will be issued with your festival tickets and will be available on our website. You can be confident when you book your tickets that if you are unable to attend due to Covid, we will give you a full refund.

ST. S T EP HE N ’ S C HU R CH

Wed 27 Oct

Ipswich Biscuit & Festival Launch SPILL Festival + The People of Suffolk

17:00 – 18:30

Naked Life Olja Grubić

17:30 – 18:15

After Burn The Rough Band

Body House (version 5) Shabnam Shabazi

Thu 28 Oct

Fri 29 Oct

Sat 30 Oct

Sun 31 Oct

from 19.30 13:00 – 17:00

IPS W I C H T O W N H A L L 18

Gaia Luke Jerram

Grand Hall

18:00 – 21:00

11:00 – 21:00

Chorus Ray Lee

11:00 – 18:00

Cornhill

18:00 – 18:25 20:00 – 20:25

60 Acts Wendy Houstoun

Council Chamber

20:30 – 21:30

Action Stations Sonia Hughes, Moi Tran, Vicki Bennett

Gallery 3

12:00 – 13:30

Baby Punk + Dr Babuyoka Laura Lulika & Hang Linton

Council Chamber

21:00 – 22:00

It’s All Good In The Hood SPILL Young Curators

Gallery 3

12:00 – 13:30

Raimund, Farewell Mary Kate Connolly

Council Chamber

15:00 – 16:30

On EDEN Mary Catherine Newcomb

Gallery 3

12:00 – 13:30

As I Am Naturally Tania Camara

Council Chamber

15:00 – 15:30

Alone Together Charlie Barlow

Gallery 3

14:00 – 14:30 16:30 – 17:00

Screen Memories Robin Deacon

Council Chamber

15:00 – 16:00

IPS W I C H A RT G A LL E RY 32

SPILL Tarot

11:00 – 17:00

EDEN Mary Catherine Newcomb

11:00 – 17:00

Race Cards Selina Thompson

11:00 – 17:00

Daughters Simona Deaconescu

11:00 – 17:00

I Want To Be Traditional Maritea Dæhlin

11:00 – 17:00

Nan Kids Leon Clowes

11:00 – 17:00

THE HO LD

Pop Up Photo Studio Autograph

11:00 – 17:00

The Pyre Parade The Rough Band

departs at 18:00

IPS W I C H FI LM T HE ATR E

Wed 27 Oct

Thu 28 Oct

Keyboard Fantasies Dir. Posy Dixon

13:30 – 14:40

WITCiH: How Does Music Shape Collective Memory? Bishi

15:30 – 16:30

Sisters with Transisters Dir. Lisa Rovner

18:30 – 20:00

The Comeback Special The The

Apples Dir. Christos Nikou

Fri 29 Oct

Sat 30 Oct

Sun 31 Oct

ﬁlm: 17:00 – 19:00 talk: 19:30 – 20:10 ﬁlm: 20:30 – 22:30 13:30 – 15:00

ST. C LE M E N T ’ S C H U R CH 52

Jenny RODENT & Alicia Jane Turner

21:00 – 22:00

Shy God – A Chorus Moi Tran

17:00 – 17:10

Atari Punk Girls Loula Yorke

17:30 – 18:00

SITE S P EC I FI C A R OU N D I PS W I CH 46

Here’s To Tomorrow SPILL Young Curators

Kids Build The Future SPILL + EDRM

I Am From Reykjavík Sonia Hughes

Tower Ramparts Bus Station

16:00 – 17:30 17:00 – 18:30 18:00 – 19:30

Ancient House

11:00 – 17:00

Barrack Corner, Norwich Road

11:00 – 17:00

11:00 – 18:00

ON THE WAT ER FR ON T 28

The Pagodas Mike Challis

Gone Gone Beyond People Like Us

Green Build+[F]easts RIBA & Uni. of Suffolk Architecture, Suffolk Sustainability Institute

Green Common outside Cult Café

11:00 – 17:00

Jerwood DanceHouse

11:00 – 17:00

15:00 – 16:00 17:00 – 18:00 19:30 – 20:30

11:00 – 17:00

Green Common outside Cult Café

build: 10:00 – 16:00

mosaic / talk: 11:00 – 13:00

feast: 12:00 – 14:00 16:00 – 18:00

Albesila Luminarium Architects of Air

Outside Cult Café

11:00 – 15:30

11:00 – 14:30

11:00 – 17:00

11:00 – 16:00

Climate Grief Karaoke Katy Dye

Cult Café

16:00 – 17:00

Mas’ Jade Blackstock

Various locations

12:00 – 12:30 16:00 – 16:30

MEMORYGRINDERR&W Paul Silo RESONANCEMACHINE John Bowers

18:00 – 18:45

SPILL Closing Drinks

Cult Café

19:00 – late

LIVE

ALBESIL A LUMINARIUM

VISUAL ART

The luminaria are designed by company founder Alan Parkinson. Since 1992 over 3 million visitors across 5 continents have immersed themselves in the spectacular and luminous world of Architects of Air.

KIDS+FAMILIES

Wed 27 11:00 – 15:30 Thu 28 11:00 – 14:30 Fri 29, Sat 30 11:00 – 17:00 Sun 31 11:00 – 16:00 30 mins Ipswich Waterfront — Outside Cult Café

 architects-of-air.com  @architectsofairAoA  @architectsofair_  @ArchitectsofAir 27

THU

FRI

THINK TANK

Photo by Architects of Air

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15

WED

HERITAGE+PL ACE

Albesila Luminarium takes its inspiration from Eggopolis, the luminarium that launched Architects of Air in 1992. It is a maze of 27 egg-shaped domes—some featuring Islamic ceiling patterns and some creating the trunk of a monumental tree.

SOUND+MUSIC

Through labyrinthine tunnels and cavernous domes, visitors move in a medium of saturated and subtle hues. Vivid reflections of liquid colour spill across the curved walls creating a world apart from the normal and everyday.

ON SCREEN

A luminarium is a sculpture people enter to be moved to a sense of wonder at the beauty of light and colour.

SPILL OPEN

ARCH ITECTS O F AIR (U K)

SAT

SUN

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FAMILIES

CHORUS R AY LEE (U K) Chorus is a monumental and impressive installation of kinetic sound sculptures by artist Ray Lee. Towering above the audience, a series of giant metal tripods support rotating arms. At the end of each arm loudspeakers emit precisely tuned musical pitches creating a pulsating, harmonic drone, singing out a hypnotic siren call to all those present. Red lights at the end of the arms create the effect of a whirling swarm of fireflies, or of planets in motion, like mesmerising orbits of colour. These intersecting lights trace rings above the heads of the audience, while the combined chorus of the spinning speakers creates a cohesive harmonious whole, ‘a sticky flux’, that is both uplifting and transfixing. Ray Lee is an award winning sound artist and composer. He creates spinning, whirling, and pendulous sound installations and performances that explore “circles of ether,” the invisible forces that surround us.

Wed 27 – Sat 30 18:00 & 20:00 25 mins approx.

Photo by Joy Riley

THINK TANK

Cornhill Free  invisible-forces.com  @invisibleforces WED

THU

FRI

SAT

SUN

LIVE

GAIA

KIDS+FAMILIES

Wed 27 18:00 – 21:00 Thu 28 – Sat 30 11:00 – 21:00 Sun 31 11:00 – 18:00

VISUAL ART

Luke Jerram’s multidisciplinary practice involves the creation of sculptures, installations and live arts projects. He is known worldwide for his large scale public artworks.

HERITAGE+PLACE

Gaia has been created in partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Bluedot and the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres.

SOUND+MUSIC

The installation creates a sense of the Overview Effect, which was first described by author Frank White in 1987. Common features of the experience for astronauts are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.

ON SCREEN

Measuring seven metres in diameter, Gaia features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface. The artwork provides the opportunity to see our planet on this scale, floating in three-dimensions.

SPILL OPEN

LU K E JERR A M (U K)

Durational Town Hall – Grand Hall

THINK TANK

Photo by Luke Jerram

Free  my-earth.org  @lukejerramartist  @lukejerram WED

THU

FRI

SAT

SUN

SPILL FESTIVAL + THE PEO PLE O F SU FFO LK Back in 2019, SPILL Festival launched a competition to find the Ipswich Biscuit. We asked you to imagine the town having its own namesake biscuit—something delicious with the word ‘Ipswich’ clearly marked on it. An edible ambassador for Ipswich. Now, two years on, join us as we launch the finished product, as chosen by you—the people of this region. Welcome to the Ipswich Biscuit. Two years ago we launched a competition about taste, place and memory, drawing on the imagination of all sorts of people who are proud to call Ipswich, and the surrounding areas, home. Entrants were asked to dream up an original recipe and also to share their stories of life in Suffolk. From all the entries received, a shortlist of 24 biscuit recipes was compiled and, in December 2019, an invited panel of 30 people from across the community joined us to help whittle it down to 10 delicious finalists. The panel reflected Ipswich’s diversity and spanned food specialists, youth and voluntary organisations, international communities and local businesses. The ten selected finalists were then presented to the public at a special Ipswich Biscuit Gala, held at Ipswich Town Hall. All of the finalist biscuits were professionally made in bulk,

Launch: Wed 27 17.00

as we launch the Ipswich Biscuit. Then be sure to check out the places it is available to buy across the festival and beyond. Because it is delicious. And because it is yours.

St Stephen’s Church Free  theipswichbiscuit.com 27

Since our winner was announced, we have been busy getting the Ipswich Biscuit as good as it can be for you. We worked on this with Professor Martin Jones, a world leading authority on biscuits. We also spent time working with Sarah Hayward-Cox of Midweek Kitchen, to develop the winning recipe from something small-batch home-cooked, to a product that can be enjoyed by all. As a result, we are delighted that all of the ingredients used in the winning Ipswich Biscuit are ethically sourced, come from local suppliers, and represent the very best that Suffolk has to offer.

BSL Join us on the opening night of SPILL Festival INTERPRETED

30 mins

WED

ready for the general public to taste and vote for their favourite. After hundreds of votes were cast, 15-year-old Eleanor Tadesse was crowned the winner of the Ipswich Biscuit competition for her delicious citrus shortbread biscuit. This recipe had been passed down through Eleanor’s family from her grandmother Edith, using lemons (her favourite) and real butter, having been forced to bake with margarine when it was rationed during World War II.

THU

FRI

SAT

SUN

Photo by Louis Simpson

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PLACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FAMILIES THINK TANK

THE IPSWICH BISCUIT

LIVE

NAKED LIFE

SPILL OPEN

O LJA GRU BI Ć (SLOVEN IA) Naked female figures are looking for a place in the audience, on stage, along the walls of the venue.

ON SCREEN VISUAL ART

Olja Grubić is a performer and visual artist. She investigates contemporary and engaged issues in different media such as performance, cabaret, video, installation, drawing. Her work reflects a broad spectrum of sensations and the social situation of today’s society.

HERITAGE+PL ACE

Produced by Via Negativa, Naked Life invites you to rethink what it means to be a living species in a living world; to have a body, conditions of existence, probabilities of life, an individual and collective welfare, and forces that could be modified.

SOUND+MUSIC

Performers grate carrots, courgettes and cucumbers in sexually marked positions. Woman as a housewife and sexual object in a single act. At the same time, fragments of the performer’s mental stream unfold on the soundtrack.

Wed 27 17:30 KIDS+FA MILIES

45 mins St Stephen’s Church Free

WED

THU

THINK TANK

Photo by Marc Andrea

 vntheatre.com  @vntheatre  @vntheatre  @olja.grubic  @oljagrubic FRI

SAT

SUN

WEN DY H O USTO U N (U K) A fast paced, slow motion, free fall through 40 years of personal and political history. Summoning up world events, discarded dances, unsung heroes and futile gestures 60 ACTS is more stand up than dance around. In this new work, Houstoun casts herself as a spiritual bingo caller summoning up her own ancestral anarchy to celebrate 40 years of treading the boards. It is a declaration of love for theatre and a re-enactment of personal, professional and political collisions. All told by an analogue idiot in digital clothing echoing Twitter’s plaintive cry: “What’s Happening?”. Since 1980, Houstoun has worked extensively as a solo performer, and in collaboration with companies and artists DV8 Physical Theatre, Tim Etchells and Forced Entertainment, David Hinton, Jonathan Burrows, Nigel Charnock, Rose English, Gloria Theatre and Lumiere, and Son Theatre.

Wed 27 20:30 60 mins Town Hall – Council Chamber

Photo by Wendy Houston

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

60 ACTS

THINK TANK

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20

 wendyhoustoun.com   @Wendy Houstoun  @whoustoun WED

THU

FRI

SAT

SUN

LIVE

WELCOME TO SPILL

ON SCREEN

SPILL OPEN

THINK TANK SPILL Think Tank events spark public conversations

SOUND+MUSIC

and invite audience responses to the work on show. They also explore the festival’s theme of Memory. Think Tank events are free and open to all.

HERITAGE+PL ACE

DAILY LUNCHTIME TALKS WITH ARTISTS IN SPILL Join us to speak with artists in SPILL at relaxed lunchtime exchanges. Hear what motivates

VISUAL ART

them and share your own thoughts. Durations are flexible; 60 to 90 minutes, depending

THINK TANK

KIDS+FA MILIES

on how each conversation goes.

OTHER SPILL E VENTS WHERE YOU C AN HE AR DIREC TLY FROM ARTIS TS: How Does Music Shape Collective Memory (page 42) Matt Johnson (THE THE) & Tim Pope in Conversation (page 51)

BSL Tank Talks All Think

INTERPRETED are BSL Interpreted

VICK I BEN N E T T, MO I TR AN + SO N IA H U GH ES

Thu 28 12:00 – 13.30 Duration: 60 – 90 mins Town Hall – Gallery 3 All welcome. Free.

WITH SPILL YO U N G CU R ATO RS

Fri 29 12:00 – 13.30

ALI CE, ALEX, JOSH UA + K ATIE

Duration: 60 – 90 mins

Join us to hear from our first ever SPILL Young Curators, about the event they have put together for the festival and their time working at SPILL. Followed by free flow public conversation.

Town Hall – Gallery 3 All welcome. Free.

HERITAGE+PL ACE

TALK 2 : SPILL Young Curators

SOUND+MUSIC

IT’S ALL GOOD IN THE HOOD

ON SCREEN

Hear from three of SPILL’s commissioned artists about their journeys creating works for the festival—Vicki Bennett’s exploded cinema installation Gone, Gone Beyond, Moi Tran’s archiving of local voices and songs, and Sonia Hughes street based action for building meaningful encounters. Followed by free flow public conversation.

TALK 1: Commissions SPILL OPEN

WITH SPILL COM M ISSIO N ED ARTISTS

LIVE

ACTION STATIONS

VISUAL ART

TALK 3 : Eden

WITH M ARY CATHERIN E N EWCOM B

Sat 30 12:00–13.30

CH INASA VIVIAN EZU GHA + L AU R A G O D FREY- ISA ACS

Duration: 60 – 90 mins Town Hall – Gallery 3 All welcome. Free.

THINK TANK

Join us to hear artist Mary Catherine Newcomb discussing her artwork Eden, and accompanying SPILL book The Eden Reader. With special readings by contributors Chinasa Vivian Ezugha and Laura Godfrey-Isaacs. Followed by free flow public conversation.

KIDS+FA MILIES

ON EDEN

LIVE

THE PAGODAS

“I have been intrigued by the images of the pagodas on Orford Ness for much of my life. It is a strange, mysterious place, a wild landscape of shingle spit with decaying scientific buildings from the mid-20th century weapons research facility. Filming a sunset or a sunrise gives a virtually still, slowly changing image to wonder at whilst the sound recording of that environment plays out. The Pagodas is about the image with the sound, wind and distant birds in a supporting role providing the eerie atmosphere of midwinter.”

KIDS+FA MILIES

Wed 27 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Durational

Free

THINK TANK

Photo by Mike Challis

Ipswich Waterfront – Green Common – outside Cult Café

 mikechallis.com   @mickchallis WED

THU

VISUAL ART

Mike Challis is a sound artist, maker and educator whose work engages with the sounds and sights of nature. He makes sound sculptures and sound installations and created a Sound Hide for Christchurch Park in SPILL 2018.

ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PLACE

Experience a slow sunrise at the winter solstice over the strange wartime buildings on Orford Ness, Suffolk. Screened in a purposefully modified caravan with immersive surround sound, The Pagodas gives the intimate experience of a breaking dawn.

SPILL OPEN

M IK E CHALLIS (U K)

FRI

SAT

SUN

LIVE SPILL OPEN

RIBA SU FFO LK AN D THE U N IVERSIT Y O F SU FFO LK ARCH ITECTU RE (UK)

THINK TANK

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PLACE

SOUND+MUSIC

ON SCREEN

[F]EASTS

Build, eat sustainably, experience and create culture. The Green Build [F]easts are a series of workshops and events, sponsored by RIBA, that encourage people to come together to create a shared eating experience. Split into three events across the festival, The Green Build on Wednesday and Thursday asks for your help to build a sustainable cob oven; then, on Friday, Professor Martin Jones will give a talk on food history to accompany a series of mosaic workshops, the result of which will decorate the oven. Finally, on Saturday and Sunday, we invite you to join us for the feast itself, lovingly cooked in the newly-built oven by members of the Ipswich community. RIBA Suffolk is the Suffolk Branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects representing professionals, chartered members and practices. The University of Suffolk Architecture is the department of Architecture teaching and research based in Ipswich within the Suffolk Sustainability Institute.

Build: Wed 27, Thu 28 10:00 – 16:00 Mosaic / Martin Jones Talk: Fri 29 11:00 – 13:00 Feast: Sat 30, Sun 31 12:00 – 14:00, 16:00 – 18:00

 ribasuffolk.com  uos.ac.uk/architecture  uos.ac.uk/content/suffolk-sustainabilityinstitute  @unisuffolkarchitecture, @riba_suffolk  @ArchitectureUOS  @RIBA_Suffolk  @UOS_SSI

Durational / Feasts 120 mins Ipswich Waterfront – Green Common – outside Cult Café External box office – see SPILL website for booking details WED

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Sponsored by the local and regional branches of the Royal Institute of British Architects with the support of the University of Suffolk.

LIVE

KIDS BUILD THE FUTURE

SPILL OPEN

SPILL + ED R M (U K)

THINK TANK

Ancient House Free  edrm.co.uk WED

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KIDS+FAMILIES

Drop-in

VISUAL ART

Thu 28 – Sat 30 11:00 – 17:00

HERITAGE+PLACE

EDRM are an architecture design studio that offer creative and strategic spatial thinking, research and architectural design to support individuals and organisations to create the ideal space to live, work and experience. EDRM’s design ethos is to create engaging, accessible and social spaces. EDRM are a social enterprise meaning that they reinvest over half of their surpluses to support positive social change by supporting the early stages of projects for cultural and community groups, and by engaging in education and development skills.

SOUND+MUSIC

Building on the success of SPILL Festival’s Block Magic, Kids Build The Future puts kids in charge to imagine how a dedicated space can function for their needs to develop and play. Working with local visual artists, Kids Build The Future encourages children to design an ambitious and accessible space for the kids of Ipswich. Entirely free—just pop by, grab a pencil, and get building the future.

ON SCREEN

Set in the centre of town, Kids Build The Future is an activity space for kids to dream up a new play space for Ipswich.

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REPRESENTING

A MAVERICK INTERPRETATION OF A CLASSIC DIVINATION TOOL

2011

In 2009, SPILL Festival commissioned a collaboration between photographer Manuel Vason, designers Justin Weyers and Jacinta Sullivan, and 22 contemporary maverick artists from around the globe. Each artist was invited to restage a tarot card for a limited edition SPILL Tarot pack, and for this exhibition – a large format photographic display of the full deck: 22 Major Arcana images, and the uncut printers’ sheets of the Minor Arcana. The images feature Lee Adams, Oreet Ashery, Ron Athey, Franko B, Julia Bardsley, Grace Ellen Barkey, Marisa Carnesky, Vaginal Davis, Sheila Ghelani, Raimund Hoghe, Helena Hunter, Dominic Johnson, Harminder Judge, Lois Keidan, Yann Marussich, Kira O’Reilly, Noblesse Oblige, Robert Pacitti, Rajni Shah, Empress Stah, Carla Esperanza Tommasini, and Manuel Vason. The SPILL Tarot is a working tarot deck, and an energetic archive of some of the world’s most exciting contemporary performers.

Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition Ipswich Art Gallery Free WED

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High Priestess photo by Manuel Vason Exhibition photo by Christa Holka

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE THINK TANK KIDS+FA MILIES VISUAL ART

SPILL TAROT

LIVE

EDEN

SPILL OPEN

M ARY CATHERINE NEWCOM B (CANADA) EDEN is an exhibition of images and curious things, emerging from the 2020 artwork of the same name by Canadian artist Mary Catherine Newcomb.

HERITAGE+PLACE

We sent field photographers out to document the growing process, and we invited writers from around the world to contribute to The Eden Reader, a book of specially commissioned texts reflecting on the artwork and the many topics it raises. We also created Little Eden, an activity pack for children.

SOUND+MUSIC

Mary Catherine is a Canadian sculptor and installation artist. She is interested in how cultures and individuals use narrative (memory, history) to create models of reality. She is a member of the Toronto Nethermind collective and was a member of Loop Gallery in Toronto until it closed in late 2019.

ON SCREEN

In early 2020, SPILL invited people from Ipswich and surrounding areas to help us grow EDEN—a collection of uncanny creatures moulded from aubergines, peppers, and squash, whilst they still grew on the plant. These figures were due to be shown in SPILL at the end of the year—a harvest of vegetable art. When it became clear that SPILL 2020 would be pushed back a year due to Covid, we worked with the artist on finding new ways to share the project.

Photo by Mary Catherine Newcomb

VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES THINK TANK

EDEN displays a selection of the images taken across last year, extracts from The Eden Reader, an interview with the artist, and a collection of jars containing a selection of pickled creatures, frozen in time and memory.

Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition Ipswich Art Gallery Free  newcombalia.ca WED

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REPRESENTING

SELINA TH OM PSO N (U K)

2013

A room containing 1000 questions about race, written by Selina Thompson in three sittings across 24 hours one weekend in Edinburgh. You’re invited to answer one of them. 65. Are you black, or are you ‘new black’? 170. What is the long term psychological impact of white supremacy on people of colour? 220. My mum does not talk about race anymore. It makes her uncomfortable, tired. Will this happen to me? 307. Why do people assume that racism will just passively die out if we wait long enough? 440. Are you angry? Race Cards is an evolving installation, with updates that reflect world events and Selina’s own thinking and learning about the politics of race. The cards in this presentation were updated in January 2021. Selina is an artist and writer described as ‘a force of nature’ (The Stage) and ‘an inspiration’ (The Independent). Her practice is intimate, political and provocative, seeking to connect with those historically excluded by the arts. Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition

Photo by Jessica Denning

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC VISUAL ART HERITAGE+PLACE KIDS+FA MILIES

RACE CARDS

THINK TANK

Ipswich Art Gallery

Free  selinathompson.co.uk   @selinatltd WED

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TAN GAJ CO LLECTIVE (ROM AN IA) Daughters is a piece about transformation, danced with black humour at impossible speeds. Three women on roller skates share a collective body with their mothers and grandmothers. They are the daughters of a confused generation, a resistant community, an absurd, overloaded society, where reality is never what it seems. Their bodies act like cyborgs, exploring sexuality, power, and freedom, fuelled by a state of constant tension and accumulation. Behaving as modern sorceresses, these dancers stretch time like elastic, in sudden stops and flows, allowing themselves to be vulnerable while sharing memories about their past and fantasies about the future. SPILL Festival will present a video document of this live work. Tangaj Collective is a performance company founded by Romanian choreographer and filmmaker Simona Deaconescu. Their works take fluid formats, in which intimate experiences are the starting point for movement, imagery, and sound. Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition Ipswich Art Gallery Photo by Ionut Rusu

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

DAUGHTERS

THINK TANK

Free

 tangajdance.com  @tangajdance / @Simona.Deaconescu  @simona_deaconescu WED

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LIVE

I WANT TO BE TRADITIONAL

SPILL OPEN

M ARITE A DÆ H LIN (N O RWAY/M E XI CO)

ON SCREEN

I Want To Be Traditional is a solo performance attempting to push the boundaries of the understanding of the self as a layered and fluid being, continuously moving in all directions. SPILL will present elements of the project as a video and sound work.

HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition Ipswich Art Gallery Free

THINK TANK

Still From Video Performance, Camera, Isaac D. Valderrama

Maritea Dæhlin is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Norway and Mexico. Her work has been shown at venues and festivals from South to North America and in Europe.

SOUND+MUSIC

“Roots are trying to dig into my skin, duele, det gjør vondt, even if I know they are only trying to get some nourishment, then they carry on floating away into a sea of sand eller av sukker o de sangre or of herbs without needing to grasp into one single spot. Som vanlig someone then comes and asks me where I am from y preguntan de dónde soy, where my mother is from, hvor faren min kommer fra, de dónde vienen mis hijos, where my phone is from, hvor katten min kommer fra.”

 mariteadaehlin.com  @maritea.daehlin WED

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LEO N CLOWES (U K) Nan Kids are everywhere at SPILL this year. They’re hiding in nooks and crannies. Can you find them? There’s never a good reason that grandma had to bring up the grandkids, but we’re not sad about that. Growing up this way just made us … a bit different. Awkward, sometimes. Old fashioned, maybe. Perhaps, a worrier. But we are lucky. Nan Kids sound pieces are created with and by kinship cared-for people from Ipswich and beyond and are situated in numerous SPILL venues. Leon Clowes is an artist of sound, words and space. He’s putting his traumas on public display and he wants to hear about yours too. He’s a Nan Kid, and a white gay man raised in the 1980s working class Staffordshire countryside. This generally makes him quite good with mums. Thu 28 – Sun 31 11:00 – 17:00 Exhibition Ipswich Art Gallery + various outdoor locations Free  leonclowes.com  @leon.clowes  @leonclowes  @ClowesLeon Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. WED

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Photo by Ilmė Vyšniauskaitė

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN HERITAGE+PLACE SOUND+MUSIC VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES THINK TANK

NAN KIDS

HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

Dir: Posy Dixon

SOUND+MUSIC

Recorded in an Atari-powered home studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folkelectronica hybrid, a sound realised far before its time. Three decades on, the musician—now Glenn Copeland—began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered. Courtesy of a rare-record collector in Japan, a reissue of Keyboard Fantasies and subsequent plays by FourTet, Caribou and more, the music had finally found its audience two generations down the line. Keyboard Fantasies sees the protagonist commit his life and music to screen for the first time—an intimate coming of age story spinning pain and the suffering of prejudice into rhythm, hope and joy.

ON SCREEN

As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986.

SPILL OPEN

2019

LIVE

KEYBOARD FANTASIES: THE BEVERLY GLENN - COPEL AND STORY

Thu 28 13:30 63 mins Ipswich Film Theatre

THINK TANK

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20  keyboardfantasies.movie  @luca.earth WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

HOW DOES MUSIC SHAPE COLLECTIVE MEMORY?

REPRESENTING

2014

BISH I (U K) WITCiH is proud to partner with SPILL for this unique panel exploring musical pioneers and technology in relation to memory, gender and identity, inspired by the documentaries Sisters with Transistors and Keyboard Fantasies.

WITCiH is an inclusive platform elevating the voices of intergenerational and intercultural women, trans and non-binary creative practitioners in tech. Through WITCiH, polymath founder BISHI has created a space for multi-disciplinary creatives to connect, evolve and grow.

Thu 28 15:30 60 mins

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20

Photo by Bishi

THINK TANK

Ipswich Film Theatre

 witcih.com  INSTAGRAM  @witcih WED

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LIVE

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS

HERITAGE+PL ACE

The film maps a new history of electronic music through the visionary women whose radical experimentations with machines redefined the boundaries of music, including Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, and Laurie Spiegel.

SOUND+MUSIC

The history of women has been a history of silence. Music is no exception.

ON SCREEN

Sisters With Transistors is the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today.

SPILL OPEN

2020

VISUAL ART

Dir: Lisa Rovner KIDS+FA MILIES

Thu 28 18:30 90 mins

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20 THINK TANK

Photo by Daphne Oram

Ipswich Film Theatre

 sisterswithtransistors.com   @SistersWithTransistors  @SisWTransistors WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART

GONE, GONE BEYOND PEO PLE LIK E US (U K) Gone, Gone Beyond is an immersive audio-visual spatial cinema work by People Like Us, aka Vicki Bennett, which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind. Gone, Gone Beyond is a 10 screen / 8 speaker piece, with seamless wrap around projection and surround sound which the audience sit inside. Commissioned by SPILL and Naut Humon (the founder of immersive theatre project RML CineChamber), it uses edited collage sewn together in a giant patchwork. Pull on a thread and watch whole new narratives expand and unravel all at once on a 360º palette. Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been working across the field of audio-visual collage, repurposing pre‑existing footage to craft audio and video collages with an equally dark and witty take on popular culture.

Thu 28 – Sat 30 15:00, 17:00, 19:30 60 mins

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20  peoplelikeus.org   @vickiwfmu  @do_or_diy Presented in partnership with Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) and Barbican. Supported by Recombinant Media Labs (RML), DanceEast, Avolites, Sound and Music, nyMusikk and Arts Council England WED

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Photo by Vicki Bennett

THINK TANK

KIDS+FA MILIES

Jerwood DanceHouse

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC

SPILL YOUNG CUR ATORS: ALEX HARDEN, ALICE THOM AS, JOSHUA SCRIVENER, K ATIE SQ UIRRELL Here’s to Tomorrow will take you on an exciting adventure, transporting you to a world far from Ipswich, and far from your expectations. You will depart for your journey from Ipswich town centre, and our intergalactically recognised tour guides will ensure your safety, even through the most unexpected circumstances. But don’t worry, the chances of the spaceship crashing are very slim. SPILL Young Curators are a vibrant team of young people from Ipswich who have been supported to develop and deliver their own programme of events within this year’s SPILL Festival.

Thu 28 16:00, 17:00, 18:00 (Arrive 10 mins prior to start time) 90 mins

THINK TANK

Meet at Tower Ramparts Bus Station

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 With thanks to Ipswich Buses, University of Suffolk Fine Art, and Ipswich Borough Council WED

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Photo by Rashoo Moon

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PL ACE

HERE’S TO TOMORROW

LIVE

BABY PUNK + DR BABUYOK A

SPILL OPEN

L AUR A LULIK A + HANG LINTON (UK)

Town Hall – Council Chamber PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20

THINK TANK

Photo by Colin Davison

KIDS+FA MILIES

BSL INTERPRETED

60 mins

VISUAL ART

Thu 28 21:00

HERITAGE+PL ACE

Lulika+Hang create audiovisual performances exploring topics of care, intimacy, sickness, disability and sex. Together they playfully and provocatively explore their unique otherness through trickster creature-like characters.

SOUND+MUSIC

The work challenges common preconceptions of what it is to be sick, crip or disabled and takes influence from queer crip theory and afrofuturism. Our bodies are POLITICAL, SPIRITUAL, JOYFUL, SEXY and ANGRY. The work expresses the need for visibility as a complex and multifaceted crip creature, while addressing the shame attached to sick bodies, bodily fluids and anything medical, in our society.

ON SCREEN

Baby Punk + Dr. Babuyoka is a collaborative performance exploring multifaceted queer crip and caregiving identities created by a disabled artist and their partner and carer.

 yonabout.hotglue.me  @lauralulika WED

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M ARY K ATE CO N N O LLY (U K)

THINK TANK

2007

On the 2nd April 2007, Raimund Hoghe stood on The Barbican stage. It was the very first SPILL Festival, and his performance of Sacre—The Rite of Spring was the opening event. On that night he shared the stage with Lorenzo De Brabandere. The two men faced one another in poignant stillness, dipped their hands and faces in water, leaned back-to-back supporting each other’s weight and sprinted breathless across the space, as Stravinsky’s iconic score flooded the auditorium. As with the many works of Hoghe’s before and since that 2007 performance, a space for encounter was opened. One of kinship, ritual and melancholy absence. A gentle observation of the passage of time, and the quiet presence of life and death—the one inextricably linked to the other. On 14th May 2021 Raimund Hoghe died in his sleep. We lost an artist of resilient grace, generosity of spirit, and acute observer of the complexities of the human condition. Raimund, Farewell is not merely a goodbye. It refuses to be a eulogistic treatise. Rather, an invitation is offered to a joyous collision of encounters, memories, and performances. Traces of a life lived with beauty, with steel, with vibrance.

Fri 29 15:00

REPRESENTING

BSL INTERPRETED

90 mins Town Hall – Council Chamber PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20 WED

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Mary Kate Connolly PhD is a writer and artist working in the margins between performance, live art, dance and costume. She edited the first English language publication on Raimund Hoghe, published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of his company. Throwing the Body into the Fight: A Portrait of Raimund Hoghe (LADA & Intellect, 2013), was the culmination of a significant body of work on the artist, and grew out of a longstanding relationship with Hoghe and his collaborators. Mary Kate presents and publishes her work internationally. She led the M.A. Creative Practice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance until 2016. Her recently awarded doctorate centred on the costume archive of choreographer Lea Anderson and utilised curatorial strategies, film making and writing to create alternative artefacts of performance. In October 2021, Mary Kate will curate Smithereens: A collection of fragments considered as a whole—a performative costume exhibition mounted at Studio 1.1, London.

Photo by Rosa-Frank.com

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

RAIMUND, FAREWELL

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

THE COMEBACK SPECIAL TH E THE (U K) D IR: TI M PO PE (2018) On the evening of 5th June 2018 THE THE returned to the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of The Comeback Special tour. The concert was meticulously recorded by Studio Cinéola and filmed by director Tim Pope, and is seen here at SPILL in a double screening. The Comeback Special is a unique multi-format project including a live album, exclusive photos and an art book, as well the beautifully shot film of THE THE’s 2018 Royal Albert Hall concert. Performing live for the first time in 16 years, the rejuvenated THE THE, which featured previous members James Eller on bass, DC Collard on keyboards and Earl Harvin on drums and new member Barrie Cadogan on guitar alongside Matt Johnson, would go on to play sold-out shows and make festival headline appearances across the globe throughout 2018.

Fri 29 17.00, 20.30 119 mins Ipswich Film Theatre

Photo by Steve Collins

THINK TANK

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20 Film only  thethe.com  @officialthethe  @officialthe_the  @thethe WED

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SPILL OPEN

M AT T JO H NSO N + TI M PO PE (U K)

THINK TANK

Ipswich Film Theatre PWYC £10 / £15 / £20 Film + talk 27

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KIDS+FA MILIES

40 mins

VISUAL ART

Fri 29 19:30

HERITAGE+PL ACE

Tim Pope is a working film director and across a 30-year, cross-genre career has directed a Hollywood feature, short films, TV, documentaries, live concerts and commercials. He is perhaps best known for his pop promo work, in particular with The Cure, for whom he has made over 30 clips. His work is known internationally and he has received many awards, including from MTV and the Brits, and a prestigious MVA 2006 lifetime award given by his contemporaries for work that has changed the industry.

SOUND+MUSIC

THE THE was formed in 1979 by Matt Johnson. His genre is all his own: it is music of long shadows, high hopes, channelled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy. It is pop and rock, blues and folk, soul and polemic. It spans alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns.

ON SCREEN

Join Matt Johnson, founder of THE THE, and Tim Pope, director of The Comeback Special, as they discuss the making of the film and their ongoing creative partnership.

WED

LIVE

IN CONVERSATION

SUN

RO D ENT + ALI CIA JAN E TU RN ER (U K) In 2039 a woman in Brisbane codes a basilisk that will change all of time. In 2120 a cyborg leads an exodus from a ruined planet. In 2500 the sea gets transed. But what use is a fantastic future when you can’t get healthcare in the present? Inspired by the anti-heroes of Weimar cabaret and 1920s opera, twisted towards a cyber punk futurism, JENNY is an explosive expression of hope and rage, asking how escapist fantasies can build new futures. RODENT is the trans-dimensional performance persona of multi-disciplinary artist B Stewardson. Alicia Jane Turner is an interdisciplinary sound artist whose work spans contemporary theatre, live art and new classical music. Fri 29 21:00 60 mins St Clement’s Church PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20  rodent.studio  aliciajaneturner.co.uk  @rodent.rodent94  @_rodent__  @aliciajaneturner Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. WED

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Photo by James Berry

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES THINK TANK

JENNY

LIVE

I A M FROM REYK JAVÍK

KIDS+FA MILIES

Durational Barrack Corner, Norwich Road

A SPILL Festival & Jerwood Arts, and LIFT and Royal Docks Team co-commission in partnership with Festspillene I Nord-Norge, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, ILT Festival and City of London. 27

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THINK TANK

Photo by Solomon-Hughes

Free

WED

VISUAL ART

Sat 30 11:00 – 18:00

HERITAGE+PLACE

I need to unwrite both of those letters, so I’m bringing my own teacups and building my own house. Ipswich, I invite you to witness me claim space in your town.”

SOUND+MUSIC

This is just a small story by way of illustration. In 1965 my mum and dad book a holiday to the Isle of Wight; my mum’s pregnant with me. Dad gets a bit wary and writes to the hotel saying that we’re coloured and would it cause any problems as they don’t want to travel all that way, what with my mum’s condition, to be turned away. The hotel writes back cancelling the reservation.

ON SCREEN

“I can’t tell you everything about this artwork in the next 150 words, if I could I needn’t make it. For sure, it’s about race, about home and belonging, public space and ownership. Ownership of myself and my ability to go about and take up as much space as I need with as much of myself as I dare bring.

SPILL OPEN

SO N IA H U GH ES (U K)

AUTO GR APH (U K) An interactive workshop bringing a pop-up photography studio and creative activities for all the family to explore the power of photography to capture our identities. Create your own history and record memories by taking portraits in our popup photography studio, using professional equipment, props and costumes. Take home your own free printed copy! Learn about the missing histories of black communities living in Ipswich and across Britain by exploring the inspiring photographs in The Hold and Autograph’s archives. Autograph engages with diverse groups and communities to explore issues of identity, representation and human rights through photography and film. They create welcoming spaces for people to share experiences, make artwork and become inspired by photography and their unique archive.

Sat 30 11:00 – 17:00 Drop-in

Photo by Autograph Archive

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PLACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FAMILIES

POP UP PHOTO STUDIO

THINK TANK

The Hold

Free  autograph.org.uk    @autographabp WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC

REPRESENTING

2016

TAN IA CA M AR A (U K) As I Am Naturally is a performance work that consists of a selection of poems and stories that challenge notions of inner beauty, femininity and gender fluidity. “Above all, this story speaks of my journey of self care, self love, self claiming and self naming. The work uses both performance poetry and physical theatre in its structure, the movement aspect of the work is primarily focused on my gestures, and mundane movements such as, walking, sitting and the physicality of stillness.” Tania is an interdisciplinary artist based in Manchester. Working with mediums such as devised theatre, theatre dance, live art, installation, and video. Tania graduated from the University of Amsterdam with an MA in Artistic Research.

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PL ACE

AS I A M NATURALLY

Sat 30 15:00 30 mins Town Hall – Council Chamber Photo by Manuel Vason

THINK TANK

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15  taniacamara.com  @TaniaCamara.Performance.Artist  @taniacamara20  @taniacamara2 WED

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MOI TR AN (VIETNA M/UK)

REPRESENTING

2018

SHY GOD takes its title from the legend of the Hoàn Kiem Lake Turtle god in Vietnamese Folklore. Both a mythical creature imbued with magical powers and a creature on the verge of extinction caused by climate change. SHY GOD – A Chorus … … is a community chorus created from diverse voices presenting ideas around sonic archiving, preservation, and legends of diaspora narratives.

Moi Tran is a visual artist, performance maker and designer, her practice is guided by research, live performance, theatre, text, sound, installation and video. Tran’s work explores the domain of immediate intimacy, micro performativity and experiences of emotional knowledge.

… is collective sonic witnessing of lived experience. … is a diverse sonic performance that will journey multiple locations. … is a choreography celebrating the value of sonic knowledge embodied in the migration of people beyond the hostile environments of border controls. … presents a public sonic zone, recognising knowledge making, personal testimony and witness through the lens of emotional, cultural, and sonic connections. … is resistance to sonic extinction. Sat 30 Outside 16:30 Inside 17:00 10 mins Outside: various locations (see website) Inside: St Clement’s Church

Photo by Yiannis Katsaris

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN HERITAGE+PLACE SOUND+MUSIC VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES THINK TANK

SHY GOD – A CHORUS

Free  moitran.com  moitran.co.uk WED

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HERITAGE+PL ACE

Loula Yorke is a composer and live electronics performer who has supported The Orb and Talvin Singh. Her infectious, beat-driven releases have made it into DJ Mag, Bandcamp Daily and Wire Magazine. Yorke is a 2020 Oram Awardee.

SOUND+MUSIC

The Atari Punk Girls stage show uses the enabling ethic of punk and the power of noise to take audiences on an electroacoustic journey of transformation, where electronic components become square waves, recordings become rhythms, phones become instruments, voltage modulates sound, sound modulates light—climaxing in a riot of industrial dance.

ON SCREEN

10 teenagers, 10 self-built oscillators, 10 amplifiers, 10 stories: 1 mission—to co-create a show about overcoming obstacles and building resilience, exploring the mutual relations between music, sound and space with live electronics artist Loula Yorke.

SPILL OPEN

LO U L A YO RK E (U K)

LIVE

ATARI PUNK GIRLS

VISUAL ART

Sat 30 17:30 30 mins

KIDS+FAMILIES

St Clement’s Church Free

A SPILL Commission supported by Arts Council England, Thonk and Teenage Engineering WED

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THINK TANK

Photo by Greg Goodale

 loulayorke.com  @loulayorke  @iamloula  @loulayorke

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PLACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FAMILIES

THE PYRE PARADE TH E RO U G H BAN D Join us for the Pyre Parade—Ipswich’s annual burning of bad news. We all know it has been a difficult couple of years. So we invite you to join us in burning your woes and clearing space for a more gentle winter. In the lead up to SPILL Festival, the Pyre Parade effigies will stand in The Hold from Monday 25 October. You can take a private moment to write down bad news, before posting it inside the bad news boxes, next to the effigies. Bad debts, health worries, a sour relationship, or colouring in where you went over the edges—whatever the badness, feed the beast. Then join us as we gather outside The Hold at 18:00 on Saturday 30 October, to parade the effigy noisily from Ipswich Waterfront to Christchurch Park (Fonnereau Road entrance). Everyone is welcome—simply turn up with something loud to bang, such as wooden spoons on saucepan lids, before we engulf the effigy in flames. Burning up the night sky and opening space for a better future. We encourage you to wear black for this year’s parade. Local lads O (Mark Offord) and Merry Grey (Robert Pacitti) started The Rough Band in 2018, but anyone can be a member. Visit roughband.com to find out more.

The parade route is accessible throughout. Sat 30 18:00 90 mins

THINK TANK

Start at The Hold

Free  roughband.com  @RoughBandIpswich WED

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AFTER BURN Following the pyre, join us at After Burn, for hot soup and ginger cake, music, chatting, and gently rocking with the Rough Band.

Sat 30 19:30 St. Stephen’s Church Free

REPRESENTING

2015

SHABNA M SHABA ZI (U K) Body Houseʼ is a series of personal and solo journeys into the realms of dislocation, rootless-ness and ʻhomesicknessʼ in constantly troubled times. The provocation for Body House has always been the erosion of cultural and material bonds. In the 21st century, the idea of ‘home’ as a fixed physical and geographical location seems redundant… Under such conditions, how do we reconcile our own exist-ence and aim to achieve a sense of futurity…? Can being without nation or flag, be a liberation rather than a loss…? After years of asking ‘where is home?’ Coming to the realisation: ’my body is my home’ and herein the real journey begins… Body House (version 5) revisits, re-inhabits, re-turns, remakes, reimagines, re-embodies, re-enacts, remembers… the prefix RE itself a mark of the archive and a memory inspired practice… Body House is a durational performance installation with original sounds mixed live by Riz Maslen (Composer/Sound Artist/Sound Designer neotropic.net). Shabnam Shabazi is an interdisciplinary ‘artivist’, a ‘maker’ and ‘enabler’ of creative projects working across a range of art forms through solo and collaborative arts practice.

Sun 31 13:00 – 17:00 4 hours

Photo by Shabnam Shabazi

LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

BODY HOUSE (VERSION 5)

THINK TANK

St Stephen’s Church

Free  shabnamshabazi.com    @shabnamshabazi WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC

JAD E BL ACKSTO CK (U K) Mas’ is an outdoor performance that explores the role of masquerades in fostering belonging, resistance and emancipation in marginalised groups. Mas’ attempts to highlight why transformation, collective change and diversity should be, and deserves to be, welcomed and amplified. Jade Blackstock’s practice uses live performance and installations to explore the body and identity within the frame of historical and cultural practices. She seeks to highlight how the body, material and space have shared capabilities of holding, transferring and embodying collective pasts and memories.

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PLACE

M AS’

Sun 31 12:00, 16:00 30 mins

Photo by Alex Gulino

THINK TANK

Ipswich Waterfront – Various locations Free  jadeblackstock.com  @jade.blackstock WED

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HERITAGE+PL ACE VISUAL ART

Charlie Barlow is an artist working in installation and performance. She received her MA in Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art, London (2018), and was the recipient of the Clare Winsten Memorial Award (2017).

SOUND+MUSIC

Alone, Together is formed by two autonomous organisms, slowly stretching and contracting their bodies as they blindly navigate space. With skin shaped from large volumes of Velcro, one coloured white, another black, the two opposites act individually, leaving chance to decide a time to meet. Ambiguous forms immobilise, have crunchy caterpillar contractions and robotic reactions; their soft breath is fragile while their bulk hostile. Together, they tentatively probe and grotesquely engulf one another, unable to separate once connected.

ON SCREEN

Alone, Together addresses attachment in the human condition—threat, love and loss—a collective subjective response to the unknown.

SPILL OPEN

CHARLIE BARLOW (U K)

LIVE

ALONE, TOGETHER

KIDS+FA MILIES

Sun 31 14:00, 16:30 Town Hall – Gallery 3

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 THINK TANK

Photo by Charlie Barlow

30 mins

 charliebarlow.co  @charlie__barlow  @charlie__barlow WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC

2020 Are we the sum of the images we compile and display of ourselves, or are we something richer, and deeper? In the midst of a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery. Through images deadpan, strange and surreal, Greek writer-director Christos Nikou posits a beguiling reflection on memory, identity, and loss, exploring how a society might handle an irreversible epidemic through one man’s story of self-discovery.

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PL ACE

APPLES

Dir: Christos Nikou

THINK TANK

Sun 31 13:30

90 mins Ipswich Film Theatre PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20 WED

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REPRESENTING

2009 SPILL OPEN

RO BIN D E ACO N (U K)

KIDS+FA MILIES

60 mins

THINK TANK

Photo by Chloë Pang

Town Hall – Council Chamber PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20  robindeacon.com THU

VISUAL ART

Sun 31 15:00

HERITAGE+PL ACE

Robin Deacon is a British artist, writer, filmmaker, and educator. His work explores questions of memory, absence and fiction through a constant reconfiguration of his role as an artist—as journalist and biographer, academic and amateur, imposter and stooge. Robin is the new Artistic Director of SPILL Festival.

SOUND+MUSIC

As a child of the 1980s, Robin describes a landscape filled with images of Kajagoogoo on Top of the Pops, Falklands War news reports, Alex Cox’s Moviedrome introductions, and strangely disturbing public information films. An exploration of what it is to be haunted by televisual imagery (both the seminal and the inconsequential), this performance may be understood as an undertaking in ‘signing off’ on such memories of watching and learning .

ON SCREEN

Screen Memories is a monologuebased performance recounting Robin Deacon’s childhood recollections of watching public service broadcasting.

WED

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SCREEN MEMORIES

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN SOUND+MUSIC

K AT Y DYE (U K) A karaoke event for people suffering from Ecological Grief; a psychological response to loss caused by climate change. In this pop fuelled installation, members of the public sing songs that express their emotions towards environmental breakdown, whether it is Snow Anxiety, Reef Grief, Glacial Depression, Heatwave Angst or North Pole Numbness. Using the vocabulary of cheesy pop songs to try to relate to a grief so enormous it shakes tectonic plates… will releasing these emotions inspire us to take action? Katy Dye is an award-winning performance artist who works across live art, theatre, dance, film and audio, with recent projects including Baby Face (**** The Guardian).

Sun 31 16:00 60 mins Ipswich Waterfront – Cult Café

Photo by Lewis Hayward

KIDS+FA MILIES

VISUAL ART

HERITAGE+PL ACE

CLIM ATE GRIEF K ARAOKE

THINK TANK

Free

 katy-dye.com  @katy_dye  @katydye1 WED

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LIVE SPILL OPEN ON SCREEN HERITAGE+PLACE SOUND+MUSIC VISUAL ART KIDS+FA MILIES

MEMORYGRINDERRESONANCEM ACHINE JO HN BOWERS (U K) Developed specifically for SPILL 2021, MemoryGrinderResonanceMachine explores tangles of social history, mythic speculation and future fantasy. Responding to the resonances of the performance space and drawing on personal archives, MemoryGrinderResonanceMachine combines improvised electronic music with film, animation and text. Taking as its starting point the exploration of three sites in Ipswich, MemoryGrinderResonanceMachine works in the tradition of the essay film to gather together personal journals, field recordings, cassettes of old pub gigs, and varied found materials. Memories and histories, ground down to grains, yet resonating here and now, fermenting, offering escape. A machine for that. John Bowers is a musician, painter, film maker and writer. He works with modular synthesisers, homebrew electronics, selfmade software, field recordings, collaged image, film of everyday subjects, and spoken text, to create performances with an intense and varied physicality. Sun 31 18:00 45 mins Ipswich Waterfront – R&W Paul Silo

Photo by John Bowers

THINK TANK

PWYC £5 / £10 / £15 / £20  jmbowers.net  @jmbowers  @johnthemodulator  @johnmbowers WED

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REPRESENTING

2012

SPILL CLOSING DRINKS Join us for drinks, speeches, reflections, and a final farewell to our departing Artistic Director (and founder of SPILL Festival), Robert Pacitti. Sun 31 19:00 Cult Café Free

ON MEM 76

ORY

TEXTS BY

D IANA DA M IAN M ARTIN RO BERT PACIT TI

RO BIN D E ACO N

WELCOME TO THIS EDITION OF SPILL FESTIVAL D IANA DA M IAN M ARTIN This text here is a speculative offering

about transformation and change, adrienne

on memory, reflecting on, with, and

maree brown says: ‘here you are, in the

alongside eight years and more of SPILL

cycle between past and future.’ maree

Writing—an embedded writing programme,

brown invites us to breathe for the day

itself shaped by three years of writerly

thus far, and for the moment that is now.

explorations by Mary Paterson and Rachel Lois Clapham and Theron Schmidt—and many more writers, artists and thinkers. As an entangled collective of writers, we have been spending time with, witnessing, being alongside SPILL for many years. To look back (to think with memory) is also to look forward—so in this text, language is a kind of spirit, witnessing, thinking alongside performance. A festival is a gathering, a being together in multiple ways (‘creating a common life together’). I think of kinship as a mode of gathering with the human and

We know how precious gathering is—and many structures, and oppressions seek to dismantle our being together. A festiv al is like a breath—and breaths are precious, we know that; they are to be noticed, cared for, held, witnessed, remembered. Repair is memory; being with is memory. Breath is memory. If performance is a mode of visioning or imagining change, how can we enable ourselves to be compelled by it? How can our bodies be it? What are the ways in which writing is a constant emergence?

non-human; and as an active attention or

Nothing of what I enact here is authored alone,

noticing of the many things that often get

because nothing of what we author is singular.

in the way of our ability to be together. In the introduction to Emergent Strategy—a book

So let us do that, take a breath.

An etymology, to play with:

In English, memorie is an obsolete spelling of memory. This is how we say memory in my language—memorie.

A different kind of obsolescence. Memorie is made through neuron ensembles; when two neurons activate each other, memories are stronger. Our bodies are moved by what we carry; our bodies are moved by what others deny too.

Memorie is oceanic. We live in times of ends and beginnings. Incompleteness, as Françoise Vergès tell us, is not about a lack, but is instead reflective of the dynamics of life.

A list, to move along with: exhausted bodies

lost bodies; regulated bodies punished bodies bodies in revolt

Memorie is also necessarily of the present; to

joyful bodies

tend to it, is to resist urgency and extraction.

nonconforming bodies

Sometimes, memorie needs to be thrown into the water, to make space for collective acts of multiple temporalities—to make space for incompleteness of a different kind.

bodies in repair healing bodies overspilled bodies bodies in silence bodies of notation

Memorie is relational—it is unlearning,

infinite bodies

and tending to, simultaneously.

spirit bodies.

Memorie is speculative—a mode of visioning (memory is queer). Memorie is abolitionist, necessarily unbordered.

An interlude (a breath)

and connection. Carolyn on surrender as

I tried to make a list of events that have

a collective practice. Jonathan on yielding

occurred since the last SPILL but they

gravity. John on admitting knowing

are too entangled, I don’t want to involve

nothing. Kelly on shadowing a town. Claire,

that energy here, let us dwell in queer

Mark, Michelle, Phoebe, Jackie, Lissie

time, where violence and change are

and I on what ifs and murmurations.

simultaneous; not falling into linear time.

You might want to

Perhaps the most egregious thing we are

Spend time with the SPILL archive,

taught is that we should just be really good

see what spirits you find there.

at what’s already possible, to leave the

Allow me an assembly

impossible alone – adrienne maree brown

(spilling memorie with SPILL writers)

An infinite history of traces without an

Anna and I in the Ipswich Town Hall,

inventory! An endless collection of oneself

speaking about poetics and language and how

that is impossible to gather – Julietta Singh

performance stays in our words and bodies. Laura writing with spaciousness, like moving water (bodies of water). Natalia thinking through palimpsests—performance has its own, multiple trajectories of memory. Debbie’s thick notations, etching pen marks over paper (duration). Phoebe’s live art protest. Lorraine’s library as labyrinth. Lewis on tactility and mediation and intimacy

An interlude (two memories)

Resonance (a spirit evading capture) —memorising the book On Time

A festival, I said, is a mark in time,

of time (how strange, the hauntology of your own making, I need to consult the archive again and again)

| but what of the ground beneath our feet,

| a radical alteration intervenes with a

those sediments of rubbish and rot—what

scene you are already in | whisper: we

do we know of them? | whisper: the sun rising

are eavesdroppers, sonic detectives

| the lucid dreaming ideal / I’m not here,

| I am inside the mirror. I am in a

I’m not there. That’s very disturbing.

trance-inducing audio-visual rhythm, a fast

It created a weird longing | whisper: what

changing present mom ent made up of pieces

we are fighting against is invisible

from the past | whisper: like memories, they

| we are born with a specific chart, but what

[fragments] are discounted from the past

it symbolises is alive, vibrating and revealing

| fires are burning inside me and out

infinite possible identities | whisper: tuning

there and I will multiply and this will not

in to the energies that are available to us

fall on my back My back is not a bridge

| slowly and gently, rather than blatantly and suddenly | whisper: political resonances | a confl ict between the skin that acts as a membrane—a felt world made of complex data and a situational osmosis I am not able to fully comprehend | whisper: social spatial practice | my first skull was someone my age, who had never gotten older | whisper:

and my body is not your limit | whisper: CHOREOGRAPHY is a social indication | If a sentence always recalls an author, then does a question hallucinate the reader? | whisper: have you ever made time, disappear? And now? And now? | people dressed as animals, fairy princess and gnomes | whisper: photographs as precursors for interrupted nightmares

instead of refusal, a practice of handling

| the terrain of reflecting on touch seems in motion, like the thresholds between flesh, skin

The pandemic has meant an evasion of

and air: inner-conduit-outer | whisper: touch

capture, and a tending to modes of attention.

is the first sense we develop while in the womb

My body feels heavy, something has

| to resist the abstraction or mythologising of processes | whisper: aesthetics of subculture

accumulated; I feel diffracted, sparse. Joyful moments are collective, dispersed, and political. Nostalgia however, is dangerous,

| a declaration of care, witnessed in the

so let us settle instead for change. Tending

presence of an audience who accepted

to attention is a form of change.

the invitation to be care-givers and care-receivers | whisper: the tree as model—sharing resources for balance | the skin is the landscape of the body | whisper: a comfortable paradox shrouded in time Robert, Season, Umama, Madeleine, Bojana, Liana, Susan, Johanna and Rebecca, Tara, Marikiscrycrycry, Mary with Jonathan, Anna and Natalie, Shaun, Alexandrina, Lewis, ria, Jasmine.

On attentions

Take this space to witness what will come in October: time is always

an exercise in collective visioning

(invoke your own spirits):

The following are rituals of remembering:

Invoking

Repairing Healing Listening Writing Speculating Connecting Moving with Moving through Moving across

A spell to end.

Instead of in memory, perhaps simply: with and alongside (memorie).

A FOOL’S JOURNEY SPILL’S FO U N D ER RO BERT PACIT TI O N TH E FIRST 10 FESTIVALS (20 07 – 2021)

Fool, foolish, foolhardy,

reckless, impulsive, rash.

What a Fool I am. To conjure up a festival, and in that same moment not to also look up and really study the path ahead. Not to heed the Magician coming over the hill, or the other characters who would inevitably follow. Not to blink or really see beyond the end of my nose, to begin with. The Tarot teaches us that when The Fool is drawn in the ‘present’ position, anything is possible, that even mountains can be moved. But wild ambition can be all consuming. And so only now, 15 years after dreaming up SPILL, do I understand that it would always eventually lead to this point—to the Sun, the Moon, and the World.

The Sun from the SPILL Tarot, Ron Athey Photo by Manuel Vason

The Moon from the SPILL Tarot, Carla Esperanza Tommasini Photo by Manuel Vason

The World from the SPILL Tarot, Yann Marussich Photo by Manuel Vason

There are many SPILL moments I will

curated a highly charged Visions of Excess for

never forget, but as I write, these

SPILL—a night of transgressive energies that

ones are just behind my eyes—

for many who were present, and also others

Raimund Hoghe presented the first event in the first SPILL Festival, back in April

Diamanda Galas and Davide Pepe’s premiere

2007, with Sacre—The Rite of Spring presented

of Schrei 27 formed the dark heart of SPILL

at the Barbican. A legendary maker and

2011, themed On Infection. A sound and fi lm

an exquisite performance, the importance

installation for a single viewer at a time, this

of inaugurating SPILL with Raimund’s

confronting, haunting work was impeccably

work remains as significant today as it

made. Sitting alone in a large auditorium with

did at the time. His passing earlier in

Schrei 27 remains a standout SPILL moment.

2021 is a great loss to many worldwide.

who weren’t, is rightly considered legendary.

Home Sweet Home presented by

Romeo Castellucci’s huge trilogy of Inferno,

Subject_To_Change helped SPILL 2012

Purgatorio, and Paradiso, presented in

land in Ipswich. A large cardboard replica of

partnership with the Barbican for SPILL

the town became increasingly hybridised as

2009, revolutionised what audiences could

audience members added their own fantastical

expect from the festival. With 150 people

buildings and structures, renamed roads and

travelling with the company from Italy, and

repurposed well known landmarks. A local

an additional cast of 50 local performers,

business leader established an underground

plus kids, horses and attack dogs, this

trade in toy horses, a porn district was

giant endeavour was a scale-busting act

set up in the centre of the town, and an

of experimental theatre. This was also

Anarchist Marxist alliance saw a large

the year that Ron Athey and Lee Adams

swathe of dwellings painted in red and

black—all surrounded by kids and crayons

AIDS. A gift of a work, if a painful one. Also

and glue. A joyful, messy reimagining of

that year, Inextinguishable Fire saw Cassils set

the town and one I will always cherish.

alight on the stage of the National Theatre—a

Amongst the many delights of SPILL 2013, jamie lewis hadley reclining on a sofa, set in the middle of a large concrete space in Hackney, having blood taken to fi ll a bag, which was then hung up for him to shoot with a gun, was another bold moment. Analogue To A Blunt Trauma was rather gentle in some ways, and utterly brutal at the same time. SPILL 2014 saw The Poetics of Trespassing by Keijaun Thomas presented in the firing range of the former Ipswich Police Station. An immaculately crafted durational performance, this work saw the artist put herself on the line to blend personal and social politic. I think of this piece regularly and the tactics used by the artist to encourage the audience to interrogate itself. It remains ever relevant.

defining moment for the festival, and for the artist. Such courage and vision. It took a long time to plan, a short time to execute, and will always be a SPILL highlight for me. Sanctuary Ring created by Martin O’Brien and Sheree Rose for the 2016 festival raised the bar again for what SPILL could and should be showing. Hardcore in nature and impact, this ‘sanctuary of sickness’ will forever be another legendary SPILL moment for those that were present, and in the telling. Supporting work such as this is the reason I started a festival—presenting it in Ipswich on a Sunday afternoon was the cherry on the cake. And then there was Clarion Call, made by Byron J Scullin, Tom Supple and Hannah Fox. Clarion Call placed 488 speakers on the roofs

In 2015, Karen Finley’s Written In Sand broke

of buildings around Ipswich waterfront to

my heart, fired my rage and allowed space

commemorate the centenary of the end of

to remember some beautiful friends lost to

WWI. Starring the voices of local women 87

and girls—and featuring Beth Gibbons of

be satanic. There have been kids and dogs and

Portishead, and Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau

adults who have pissed and shat and vomited.

Twins fame—each dusk performance saw a

Egg enemas and cakes you wouldn’t want to

helicopter fly in with the final set of speakers

eat. There has been a lot of blood, and spit,

suspended from it, broadcasting the singing

and cum. There was an occasion I genuinely

voices for miles. Performed twice a day for

feared for my life through being crushed to

11 days, and reaching 50,000 people each

death by a distraught horse and simultaneously

time, this large-scale sonic installation

bitten by a venomous snake—both highly

shifted SPILL to become an event a whole

agitated by us all being in the same very

town could experience. SPILL had moved a

small confined space. There have been gifts of

long way from its 2007 London origins as a

rotting fish, and pools of rancid milk. There

festival of mainly body-based performance

was the time multiple people fainted in the

art. But there has been a curiously obvious

same audience all at once, way more than we

logic to the whole journey. However reckless.

had bargained for. And the time hundreds of

Other memorable moments over the years: planning meetings with artists in obscure locations—a German brothel, a derelict

shards of smashed china flew into the audience at speed, despite multiple tests before the event. Performance art can indeed be high risk.

Italian farm—and business meetings with the

SPILL stands on the shoulders of three

knickerless. There was the artist who booked

giants—two knowingly and one accidentally,

a miniature horse to star in their work without

if such a thing exists. The National Review

telling us (and they only booked a miniature

of Live Art (NRLA), run in Glasgow by

horse as a big one wouldn’t fit in the lift).

the inimitable Nikki Milligan across a 30

There was the religious zealot on his balcony

year period, was my education in what a

with a loud hailer, who believed the festival to

festival of experimental work could be. Lois

Keidan’s time as Director of Live Art at

being a temporary custodian, but I have

London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts

also felt the spirit of Groundcourse

(ICA) taught me what thematic programming

still present in the corridors, walls and

could achieve and introduced me to the

energy of the space. Innovative Ipswich

work of many incredible artists. And there in the background was Groundcourse, a

at its best. A perhaps unlikely location for such energetic frequency, but one which

radical arts training led by Roy Ascott.

I have found completely inspiring.

In 1967, the year I was born, the building

They say there is no fool like an old fool.

which is now the SPILL Think Tank was part of the Ipswich Art School and home to Groundcourse—a radical experiment in alternative learning, communication, interaction and participation. The course was built around challenges—exercises and games which were designed to disrupt expectations and build knowledge for students in ways which defied norms. Groundcourse proved so controversial that its time in Ipswich was limited, despite laying the foundations for much of what is

I say make all the mistakes, embrace failure, resist trying to fit in. The attempt is the thing, and holding the nerve to try. And so as I bow out from SPILL, with the festival now its own legal entity and Robin Deacon the new Artistic Director, I can’t wait to see what happens for it next. It’s been a wild ride across the past 15 years, and now the deck is about to be shuffled anew—the Sun rises, the Moon shines, and a whole World of new possibility awaits. Reckless, impulsive, rash? Here’s to that.

commonplace in contemporary arts today. I have always known my time running SPILL at the Think Tank was one of 89

TOWARD ECSTATIC DISCOVERY RO BIN D E ACO N

There are some memories, the tenacity

literature—all consumed on vinyl or paper, of

of which stem from the recollection

course. It would seem this piecing together

of seeing something for the first time, and

of yourself through ever shifting cultural

having no frame of prior reference to make

allegiances, (the evolving versions of who

sense of the experience. In popular culture, an

you are, or could be) has a tendency to end

example often cited is the memory some have

with adulthood. Before his death in 2017,

of watching David Bowie’s 1972 performance

cultural commentator Mark Fisher asked the

of his song Starman on the BBC’s chart

question, “Is it possible to reproduce, later

rundown show Top of the Pops. Or for others,

in life, the impact that books, records, and

the memory may be of seeing post-punk band

fi lms have between the ages of fourteen and

Joy Division playing their song Transmission

seventeen?” If, as Fisher seemed to suggest,

live on the British youth-oriented program

the possibility for such powerful impressions

Something Else in 1979. Seeing Michael Jackson

decrease as we age—what mechanisms

performing Billie Jean as part of the 1983

do we have to bypass the diminishing

Motown twenty-fifth anniversary concert

returns of repetition and familiarity?

broadcast (and doing the moonwalk for the first time in public) could be another example.

One reviewer of Fisher’s books commented that the most moving parts of his writings

Admittedly, these examples reflect a hopelessly

stemmed from his attempts to “recover the

middle-aged perspective. But at this point

ecstatic reverie of discovery.” As I take up my

in my life, there is something bittersweet

new role as Artistic Director of SPILL, I have

in recalling such moments of adolescent

frequently found myself musing on this notion,

revelation, harking back to a time when

but in the context of my own early interactions

one’s sense of identity was in a large part

with art as performance, performance as

formed by developing tastes in music or

art. I have been revisiting my memories of

festival attendance in years past—first, as a young, bewildered audience member, and later on as a presenting, ‘professional’ artist (sometimes still bewildered). This is to use my own experiences of ‘ecstatic discovery’ to inform what I would like to create as I embark on this new journey with SPILL.

My first performance festival was

disquiet grew. I remember that as a student

experienced when I was a fine art

volunteer assigned to assist Stitt in sourcing

student in my early twenties. The festival was

his materials and setting up the space, I was

called Cardiff Art in Time, and was organised

terrified that it would be me who would be

by the Time Based Studies Department of

held responsible for the venue’s fire alarm

the now defunct University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. This festival ran in various iterations during my studies and beyond, a period that has populated my memories with a series of distinct and unforgettable images. It was in 1995 that I saw artist André Stitt performing The Crow at Chapter Arts Centre as part of the festival. I recently managed to track down a document of this work, transferred from a video tape and uploaded to YouTube. As I watch the footage, I am acutely aware that my younger self is somewhere in this fuzzy, degraded recording. I cannot see myself, but know that I was in the audience, and remember the exhilaration as I looked

being triggered, and the resulting evacuation of the building. The nature of this memory is clear, stemming as it did from the feeling that I had never seen anything like this before. But this would not be the only time. One year prior, at the same festival, I had watched US artist Stuart Sherman present his Spaghetti Spectacle. Again, in watching digitised footage taken from the Hi-8 format videotape I still possess of this performance, I am acutely aware that I was present in the audience, but again, unseen in the video. But tape or no tape, the memory remains of my mind being blown by the dry, deadpan humour of Sherman’s performance the effect of which

on with incredulity as André Stitt started a

I had, as yet, no language to describe. I was

fire inside the building. The burning plastic

laughing, but had no understanding as to

hoop he had suspended from the ceiling

why. This first contact with Stuart Sherman

began melting and smoking as the audience

at this festival had an incalculable effect

on me as a young artist, coming to fruition nineteen years after seeing his work at Cardiff Art in Time, when, as a ‘grown-up’ artist fi lmmaker, I completed a full-length documentary in memory of Sherman’s life and work. This was fourteen years after his death. In 1998, I returned to Cardiff Art in Time as a recent graduate to watch Chicago performance collective Goat Island perform The Sea and Poison. Goat Island was a company I had become completely obsessed with since first seeing their unique brand of intensely physical dance, sampled dialogue and ingenious usage of props at the same festival two years prior. Thirteen years later, all core members of Goat Island became my colleagues within the performance department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I taught for a decade before relocating back to the UK to make Ipswich my new home, and SPILL the centre of my new artistic adventures.

These words are in memoriam of three

I am also thinking of those who may have

festival experiences that were life

‘seen it all before’—those of us who may have

changing for me. I share these accounts as I

attended most, if not every, SPILL Festival

now imagine what might be the experience

since its inception in 2007. Whatever stage

of a first-time visitor to SPILL in 2021, be

you are at in life, whatever familiarity you

they young or old or somewhere in-between. Perhaps this is your first visit to a festival of this kind. What memories will be created? What possibility is there for SPILL to replicate for you the sort of profound experiences I had at the Cardiff Art in Time festival? How might something you see at SPILL be experienced by you, not only in the moment, but as a ripple or echo that may inform, provoke, niggle or haunt years after the initial encounter? Will you even recognise the significance of these experiences at the moment they happen, or will they unfold, bloom or explode at some inopportune, random moment in the future? Perhaps something you will see at SPILL 2021 will make you want to be an artist, a maker, an organiser—the memories you gather here may be the starting point of these future possibilities. 94

may have with performance at its most experimental, my hope is that ecstatic discoveries may still be possible for you. I write this without knowing whether the world will still be quite as strange and incomprehensible by the time you have come to read these words. But if we are all now seeing the world with unfamiliar eyes, my hope is for a form of ecstatic discovery that is shared by all, and for the creation of memories that are as collective as they are profound.

D IANA DA M IAN M ARTIN is a writer and academic working at the intersection between writing, politics and performance. She co-edits Critical Interruptions with Bojana Jankovic, and co-hosts Something Other and the Department of Feminist Conversations with Mary Paterson and Maddy Costa. Diana is a Senior Lecturer in Performance Arts at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

RO BERT PACIT TI is an artist working with sound, text, and ritual. He is one half of the Rough Band, collaborating with the artist O, and one half of Two Churches, working remotely with Australian artist Sweeney. Previous projects include Pacitti Company (1992–2021) and SPILL Festival (2007–2021). He is a Visiting Professor of the Arts at the University of Suffolk, and Patron of Outreach Youth.

RO BIN D E ACO N was born in Eastbourne, UK in 1973. His career as an artist, writer, fi lmmaker and educator spans over twenty-five years, with his work being seen in festivals, conferences, theatres and galleries all over Europe, the USA and Asia. Robin has also presented his work at three SPILL festivals—in 2009 and 2015, and now, in 2021. In 2011, he moved to the United States to take up a Professorship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was also Chair of the Performance Department. In 2021, Robin returned to the UK to become the new Artistic Director and CEO of the SPILL Festival, Ipswich. He is happy to be home again.

For extensive further reading from SPILL Festival visit, spillfestival.com/read 95

Penn Commercial, performing the ‘Art of Business’, with our proven skills in matching local companies with the right property in the right location.

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Suffolk Archives is pleased to welcome you to The Hold, a brand new heritage centre on the waterfront in Ipswich. This exciting visitor attraction and meeting place has a purpose-built exhibition gallery, café, shop and more. Why not pop in and see for yourself! From exhibitions to film screenings, family craft activities to talks and lectures, we have something for everyone.

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Salthouse Harbour Hotel Neptune Quay, Ipswich IP4 1AX Tel: 01473 226789 www.salthouseharbour.co.uk

The Stained Glass Studio

Tel 01473 740189 info@coffeelink.com

Traditional and Contemporary Commissions, Restorations, Fused Glass and Sculpture

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Creative workshops in many different arts

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SPILL TEAM Senior Participation Producer Alice Sandon

Senior Administrator Kathryn Kirton

Executive Director Andy Brumwell

Administrator & SPILL Open Project Manager Martha Loader

Technical Director Bernd Fauler

Outgoing Artistic Director & Curator of SPILL 2021 Robert Pacitti

Marketing Manager Caz Slota

Incoming Artistic Director Robin Deacon

Volunteer Coordinator Hannah Bixby

SPILL Young Curators Alex Harden Alice Thomas Joshua Scrivener Katie Squirrell

Senior Producer Helen Dawson Press and Corporate Engagement Helen Oldfield, Affinity PR

SPILL TV Ana Godinho de Matos Chameleoneye Films SPILL Photographer Guido Mencari Brochure design Come Hither Design Print Five Castles Press

106

SPILL Trustees Ben Ryan Hugh Whittall Janette Wand Season Butler Shabnam Shabazi Think Tank Associates EDRM Lucy Walker Mark Offord Martin Jones

SPILL OPEN Panel Jon Opie (Jerwood Arts) Liana Psarologaki (University of Suffolk) Moi Tran (Artist) Season Butler (Artist) Shabnam Shabazi (Artist)

GETTING GET TING TO IPSWICH BY TRAIN Ipswich train station is located 5 minutes from the town centre. Greater Anglia trains run from London Liverpool Street every 30 minutes during the day. Journey time 64 minutes to 90 minutes. Trains to and from Cambridge every hour. Journey time 85 minutes. NORWICH

There are also trains to and from Norwich every 30 minutes. Journey time 40 minutes.

BY ROAD From London via A12 northbound From Suffolk Coast via A12 southbound

CA M BRIDGE

From Felixstowe via A14 westbound

IPSWICH

From the Midlands via A14 / A1(M) From the North of England via A14 eastbound

CHEL MSFORD

From Norwich via A140

PARKING There are ample car parks within the Ipswich town centre and these are sign posted. Long and short stay available.

LONDON

See the inside back cover for the festival map. 107

SPILL THANKS SPILL Festival sincerely thanks the following organisations and the teams that staff them for their generous support, without which SPILL Festival of Performance would not be possible: FU N D E RS

SPONSOR

ME D I A PA R T N E R

PA R T N E RS

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We send sincere thanks to the following people and organisations for their valued contributions to SPILL Festival: Activ Gardens, Adam Keer, Andrew Stock, Ant Roberts, Associated British Ports, Attenborough Centre, the Barbican, Ben Lewry, Benjamin Powell, Brendan Keaney, Bryony Rudkin, Colchester + Ipswich Museums Service, DadaFest, Dan Champion, Dan Kerr, Dan Thomas, Dance East, Daniel Brine, David Ellesmere, Diana Damian Martin, EDRM, Ellie DeGory, Emily Shepperson, Fiona Bovill, Graham Hornsby, The Greyhound, Helen Pluck, The Historic Churches Trust, Ipswich Borough Council, Ipswich Buses, Ipswich Film Theatre, Jack Cripps, James Steward, Jane Watt, Jayne Knight, Joe Bailey, Joe Watson, Jon Opie, Jon Wright, Kate Wilson, Kathryn Rogers, Kei Humphreys, Liana Psarologaki, Lilli Geissendorfer, Lisa Thomas, Marcus Neale, Mark Hunter, Mark Offord, Mark Whiting, Martin Jones, Martin Pike, Michelle Emmerson‑Gray, Pêdra Costa, Pentahotel Ipswich, Peter Ling, Renata Karausova, Richard MacRae, Richard Woods, Robert Gough, Robin Saville, Russell Williams, Sam Worboys, Sarah Hayward‑Cox, Sophie Alexander-Parker, Spring Road Allotments, Stephanie Young, Steve Bryce, Su Ling Emin & The Green Room, Titans Security, Toni Racklin University of Suffolk, University of Suffolk Fine Art. SPILL Festival would like to thank every artist and company that applied to SPILL OPEN. We would also like to thank all the artists and community participants who have shared their work as part of SPILL Festival. Huge gratitude is also due to our dedicated volunteers, technical crew, and venue partners who have worked so hard to make this festival possible at such a challenging time.

Community Pathway Ambassadors Kushwant Kaur, D/deaf pathway Papworth Trust, disability charity Ipswich Oddfellows, friendship support Ipswich Job Centre, families Suffolk Libraries, regional pathways Suffolk Refugee Support, families and young people

Anglo Chinese Cultural Exchange, families Karibu African Women’s Support Group, women and families Activities Unlimited, children and young people with additional needs and disabilities 109

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