Can you tell what it is yet?*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was lucky enough recently to work backstage at The Scottish Opera’s touring production of La Boheme starring Celine Byrne. While I am vaguely predisposed to opera I don’t really know a huge amount about it so I wont embarrass myself by attempting a review. Plus, as a dresser, even if I had been able to hear all of it I couldn’t really see the stage from where I was standing backstage.

 

 

 What I did hear and see was beautiful, y’know, and kudos all round, but the best bit about my week was definitely the ‘commute’ - a 30 min walk - culminating in Daniel Libeskind’s beautiful Grand Canal Theatre.

 

 

 Walking from Portobello Bridge to Grand Canal Square along the Grand Canal you move from a small-scale world, which is old and bucolic and lush, through to this great opening out of sky and water.

The theatre is jagged and complicated, like an origami crane. It is deeply assertive, deeply dynamic in its angles, in its sheer audacity.

 

 

 The architectural concept of the theatre is based on stages: the stage of the theatre itself, the stage of the piazza, and the stage of the multiple level theatre lobby above the piazza. How this translates in execution can be seen from the photos below. However, this didn’t immediately strike me as its primary intent. What I loved about the theatre was how ephemeral it looked in certain lights. Libeskind has harnessed the reflections in the glass frontage of the theatre, bouncing images of itself back on itself and reflecting and refracting the buildings surrounding it. He has made something more shimmering than solid, something that interacts, is almost dependent on its environment.

 

 

 Had I been asked to define its concept on first viewing I would have talked about the parallel between the constantly shifting light and the fleeting moment that is live performance, whether that be rock, theatre or opera.

Architecture is, as the cliché goes, frozen music…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more on Libeskind see www.daniel-libeskind.com

 

 

*This is a copy of Libeskind's concept sketch for Grand Canal Square. Seriously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duvet Days Blog

Duvet Days 7th May 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rajah Quilt, Made by convicts on board HMS Rajah, 1841, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

 

While trapped in London during April's volcanic ash "Travel Chaos", I went to see the V&A's fantastic Quilts exhibition. The place was jammed with ladies of a certain age, all giving the impression they were rocking twin-set and pearls even if they weren't doing so literally. I wonder did the V&A make a deal with Britain's Womens' Institutes? 

 

What struck me about the quilts on show was how valuable they ought to be as pieces of social history, and what a shame it is womens' crafts have been assigned only an emotional value. Yet the stories attached to each quilt reflected family connections, social aspirations and political affiliations as well as more typical rites of passage such as marriages, births and deaths.

 

It is the intertwining of the personal and the political that makes the exhibition so intriguing. Take for example the quilt below which shows King George III reviewing the troops, dated 1803-1805. This quilt exists not only as a fabulous piece of propaganda, it is also the repository of its unknown maker's dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

George III reviewing the troops (detail), Unknown maker, 1803-1805. Museum no. T.9-1962.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From www.vam.ac.uk/things-to-do/blogs/quilts-hidden-histories-untold-stories/home  Sue Prichard's Curator's Blog:

 

"Perhaps more intriguing ... is the image of a feisty young woman who has stitched her portrait into several of the most pertinent scenes. Who is this woman - so bold, so brave, and so insolent as to stitch herself into history? Why didn't she simply sign and date the piece like so many before and indeed afterwards? This is not a typical stitcher, content to sit by the fireside gossiping with her companions. This woman, a red haired beauty, has aspirations; her passions aflame with a desire to experience the wider world, a man's world..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, complete with 'passions aflame' and inspired by the exhibition, I've started work on a patchwork quilt. It is decidedly apolitical (after all, what am I going to do? Applique an image of Eamon Gilmore saying something clever?), consisting of scraps of old shirt cotton, Irish Linen and silk in an Art Deco-ish style. I'll post photos anon, right now I'm trying to source cotton, silk or bamboo wadding to back it that doesn't cost a bleedin' fortune! Any ideas, please leave a comment below…

Thanks!

 

Oh, and many many thanks to Catherine and Gonzo O'Neill for the booze 'n' bed for the night, and to Aengus and Linda McMahon for same. Big shout out to the London massive! X

 

 

 

Duvet Days Bedside Reading:

"The Woman Who Shot Mussolini" by Frances Stonor Saunders

Saunders' writing is initially a little flowery, but this is a cracking story about the Honourable Violet Gibson, daughter of Lord Ashbourne, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who attempted to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926 and was condemned without trial to a lunatic asylum where she died in 1956. 

 

Click here for reviews

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/28/woman-shot-mussolini-stonor-saunders

 

and to buy

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=woman+who+shot+mussolini&sprefix=woman+who

 

 

 

 

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