Introduction:
Eccentricity is widely regarded as a slowly diminishing behavioural trait in today’s society, compressed and pressured to conform to popular consensus of normality. Yet looking closely throughout our England and Lincolnshire pockets of eccentric behaviour are still rife.
The Trivia of Eccentric England explores through a series of new commissioned projects and accompanying talks and films, the nature and role eccentricity plays in today’s modern lifestyle, and asking what role an artist can have in reviving and reinventing English eccentricity in Lincolnshire. A film programme looks at past examples and explores in wider sense societies eccentric behaviours, which teeter on the edge of popular conformity.
Programme:
(All events are free)
Image courtesy of Matt Stokes
Wednesday 14th September
Matt Stokes
The Gainsborough Packet, 2009 (10mins) followed by live music set
The Gainsborough Packet, was the culmination of a year’s research and development, which began with Stokes’s discovery in the Tyne & Wear archives of a letter written in 1828 by an ordinary man named John Burdikin. The letter became inspiration for lyrics, music and film created by Stokes and his collaborators on the project - musician Jon Boden from acclaimed folk band Bellowhead and composer Alistair Anderson. The Gainsborough Packet engages with folk traditions, contemporary music videos and popular culture, and is being produced with a particular sensitivity to the shared legacy of folk music in Camden and Newcastle which stems from Stokes immersive research based practice.
The film was followed by a live music set by Robin Grey complementing the music within The Gainsborough Packet.
Image courtesy of the World Egg Throwing Federation
Wednesday 12th October
Tomāto Tomäto
A collection of eccentric subjects bought together under one roof to be shared and dissected.
The workshop bought together artists and eclectics from across the UK to explore subjects that were both personal passions and eccentric explorations, the workshop aimed to act as a catalyst for thought, as inspiration and introduction. The mix of subjects presented had no collaborative connection but acted as an eccentric explosion of thought processes and behaviours.
The workshop did not strictly set out to establish the framework of eccentricity and what it means today, but aimed to open the door to quirks in the system that may led to further debate and exploration by the attendees.
Participants included: Anthony Schrag, Victoria Melody, Project Pigeon, John Plowman, The World Egg Throwing Championships, John Ward
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Matthew Cowan.jpg)
Photography by Julian Hughes
The Company
Saturday 3rd September 2011
Matthew Cowan
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Photography by Julian Hughes
The Company of Ringers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln was formalised on 18 October 1612, in a constitution granted by the Dean, and is the earliest known Company of Ringers still performing their duties for which they were set up. A patent, dated 23 September 1614,
confirming the Rules of the Company and granting the use of the "one Chappell scituate and beinge within the dore that leadeth upp to saincte Hughe steeple to bee theire meetinge place". Thus the Lincoln Cathedral Company were granted their own Chapel, known today as The Ringers' Chapel, and unique in the field of bell ringing.
Image courtesy of Matthew Cowan
Matthew Cowan worked with the Company of Ringers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln to produce a new film of their meeting and practice which accompanied a performance. The ringers operate the 13 bells of the Cathedral in the Bell Ringer's Chamber high in the West Tower of the Cathedral. The film is a record of the ritual of the practice of the ringing of the cathedral bells, in space that has been dedicated to such activity for nearly four hundred years.
Alongside the film a new live performance involving the repetitive ritual of bell ringing, the mechanism of the bell ropes, and the artist's own take on the physicality of campanology took place where folk traditions encapsulated the performance.
Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich
Image courtesy of Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich
The Ancient Order of Eccentrics Banquet
Saturday 29th October
Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich
A film of the project will be produced following the banquet and screened in Lincoln
A unique celebration of eccentric genealogy, an evening of food, conversation and
entertainment that re-ignites the revolutionary spirit of the eccentric.
Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich will celebrate the end of Lincoln Art Programme’s The Trivia of Eccentric England programme, with an evening of food, entertainment and speeches in a celebratory evening banquet. They aim to reignite the spark of eccentricity and celebrate those attributes that have broken down boundaries, forged new ideas, and given the status quo a short shift.
This is both a celebration of the attributes of eccentricity and an exploration in to the myth making that is part of family histories. The ways in which we re-invent ourselves and the attributes we uphold will be re-woven through this event and will draw inspiration and influence from aristocratic eccentric Charles Waterton (1782 – 1865) whose independent thinking allowed him to pioneer the first nature reserve in the UK and invent the wooden bird box at a time when most aristocrats would be shooting birds as vermin. It is this same free thinking that, as legend tells us, also led to Waterton's unusual behavioural traits included sometimes enjoying biting the legs of his guests from under the dinner table, imitating a dog….
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