Dialogues of Space

DIALOGUES OF SPACE

Spring Cafe and Sense Collective are organising a day of togethering, listening and musiking at Abbey Gardens E15, a community-led green open space resting upon a medieval abbey alongside railway tracks, nestled in concrete.

We are gathering to celebrate the permanent installation of Limpe Fuchs’ serpentinite stone row - a musical instrument made of granite plates - at Abbey Gardens.

Participants, artists and organisers are invited to tune into a place of awareness and deep listening: a simple and intentional conversation, both external and internal, with self-made instruments, one another and the flora and foliage of Abbey Gardens.

We want to make Dialogues of Space a collective act of reimagining the landscape and unveiling earthly hymns, enhancing the simple continuity between human-made and organic sound spheres.

INTRO

Centring the serpentinite stone row and Limpe’s practice, we have invited local artists duo Blanc Sceol to join us for a day of collective performances, improvisation and sonic meditation.

Limpe Fuchs will host a workshop inviting participants to play her two pendulum string instruments, the serpentinite stone row, and small percussion pieces. She also encourages you to bring your own instruments. After showing the possibilities of playing with different tools and a period of trying, the precision of our listening will grow and nonverbal communication with the group, sounds and the environment will start.

Blanc Sceol will be performing with the ‘Orbit’, a self-created instrument they have collaborated with for years. This two-player instrument requires the performers to work together as the Orbit leads them into a cosmos of dynamic, pitch-shifting drones and harmonic rhythms. Their performance will facilitate deep listening and ecological attunement to the surroundings of Abbey Gardens.

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT

Dialogues of Space is an event made possible through the collaborative work between the artists, Sense Collective, Spring Cafe and Abbey Gardens community: it hasn’t been granted public funding, but we aim to pay the artists for their time, support the Gardens and cover all costs incurred.

This is why we are releasing tickets here, separated into three tiers: £15, £10 or £5, for you to choose from if you wish to support the event financially. A pay-what-you-can box will also be available on the day. The ticket price will go towards remunerating Limpe Fruchs, Blanc Sceol, Sense Collective & making a donation to Friends of Abbey Gardens to keep the garden blooming. 

Everyone will be welcome to join us on the 13th of July - no one will miss out! If you can, please help support the event by purchasing a ticket, otherwise just come and have a good time.

Any amount will be wholeheartedly appreciated as knowing that you believe it’s important to make moments together happen is the key! 

THE GARDENS

​Abbey Gardens is a unique open community garden on the site of a 17th Century Abbey. The site is one of only two Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Newham and contains the remains of a 12th-century Cistercian Abbey where monks once ran a kitchen garden. Designed as part of a living art project ‘What Will the Harvest Be’ founded by Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie. The result is a beautiful open-access park and harvest garden acting as a unique and valued local resource for both the local and wider communities in Newham.

The gardens are run by the community working together through the seasons, using the garden as a place to pause, to grow, to meet, and to make - building a beautiful, healthy and sustainable garden that everyone can benefit from. 

Open every day from dawn till dusk with community gardening workshops weekly on Sundays 3pm-5pm and many events between April and October.

ARTISTS

Limpe Fuchs

Limpe Fuchs is a composer of acoustic and visual incidents based in Germany. 

During her solo performances of experimentation and improvised music, she walks freely between various self-built instruments evoking landscapes of sound and using her voice like birds. 

When improvising with other musicians, new ways of playing are found, created through emotions stored in the musical memory: a treasure that grows with every performance.

Limpe makes music while listening to the environment and the stream of time, with simplicity and emotion.

http://www.limpefuchs.de/en/

http://www.limpefuchs.de/content/limpefuchs4b.jpg

Blanc Sceol

Blanc Sceol are an artist duo (Stephen Shiell & Hannah White) who work in the expanded field of listening, sound, and performance. They instigate participatory gatherings to foster a reciprocal relationship with ecological communities.

Their work is a spiral within the space-time continuum.

www.blancsceol.co.uk

Instagram - @blancsceol

Sense Collective

SENSE is a curatorial platform created in Hackney Wick in 2017, bringing multi-disciplinary art 

practitioners and specialists together to explore and connect through their work. Each iteration of the project - a mixture of live performances and exhibitions - follows themes borrowed from sciences and/or social theory glossaries.

Their work fosters a local network of practitioners with similar interests in collective participatory improvisation and handmade processes.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Abbey Gardens, Bakers Row, Barking, United Kingdom