GUEST PROJECTS AFRICA A WING, A PREY, A SONG experiments with drama and film projection in the gallery space. Its theme: the pursuit of greener pastures and what it takes to survive using the analogy of migratory birds. The project will host two public readings/performances/projections by two actors in the Guest Projects Space on 30 October 2013 in Hackney 2.30 and 7.30 1 Andrew Road, Haggerston E.8. There will also be participatory workshops events to contribute to the creation of the set and two chalk events. Through this website and our facebook page ongoing creative e contributions and debate.
Bristol-based writer/artist Ros Martin’s successful application to YINKA SHONIBARE’S GUEST PROJECT AFRICA space for A WING, A PREY, A SONG theatre play with animation project proposal has given rise to this 9 day residency taking place from 21st October to 30th October 2013. ‘Of course I am absolutely thrilled and excited’.
www.guestprojects.com/gp-africa/a-wing-a-prey-a-song/
What inspired the project?
Says Ros : ‘I am fascinated by migratory birds in the natural world. That image of the deep horizon oil spill of a bird clogged in oil spill haunts me, and well, this current media, government attack on migrants concerns me. It is, I believe designed to create fear, division and distraction, how timely in an economic recession! People have always migrated, that’s what people do, much like birds, that we take for granted. Migrants are essential to the economy, enrich the country and communities wherever they settle.
Further more, migratory birds and people are connected in many different ways i.e, their dependence on specific habitats during migration, being the first to feel the effects of changing environments; particularly human interaction with the environment ( for good or ill), they also connect us with continents and oceans……’
There has to be another way of viewing migration.
Workshops will be set up for project partners Heba and members of the British Black Feminist Collective to create birds for the set and engage creatively in peoples own narratives using birds. We will engage creatively with random passerbys with chalk events.
What are chalk events?
Literally going out armed with containers filled with chalks into a public space, writing, drawing and engaging random passerbys with issues Something I undertake regularly in the centre of Bristol, countering an EDL march on Bristol in May 2011. Save Bristol Central library August 2013 and in the past three years to promote International Workers Day and International Womens Day. In this instance it will be brought to Hackney streets Cambridge Heath and Broadway Haggerston, in surrounding streets of the residency and will be part of the set as well as promote the project.
Our undertaking will be to find out; what do people associate with three words,
A WING
A PREY
A SONG
See upcoming events for dates.
The Play
Who and what do you become? You are a woman on your own, from abroad with economic responsibilities playing different roles to different people….
Three cell phones command AMINA’s life. A phone back home to Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe, a personal phone for the UK which she wants to ring but seldom rings and when it does it will transform her life. Finally, the emergency phone to be carried nearby at all times. This one warns of an immigration swoop……………..
The play takes place in a room at a clandestine address in London during the summer. It provides a window in the lives of two migrant women strangers, rooming together each surviving in their own way.
