'Fabric of Society' opening celebration
View from afar
This is a view at the beginning of the picnic event. Loads of people came and there was a general buzz about the artwork. Our plan is to develop a garden in this space that will invite people to approach the artwork and read the captions which are fantastic.
Patricio's speech
Patricio thanked people for responding to us by bringing in the fabric, even though it was hard to visualise an end product. It was nice to hear that some people were saying that they now wished they had participated.
Julian's speech
'..and, we really enjoyed making this artwork and interacting with people. This is our contribution to you all', said Julian.
Dot and the hoop
Dot Grose Forrester invented a new way of hoola-hooping with the head while the speeches were being delivered.
A participant
There were about six people in wheel-chairs from Southwark who had participated.
The Mayor's speech
Sir Steve Bulloch, the mayor of Lewisham, gave a short speech which was nice and quite informal. He then declared the 'fabric of society' officially open.
Guy, Patricio and Dot
Guy Brett's Text: Patricio Forrester, born in Argentina and now living and working in London, forms with Julian Sharples the creative duo, Artmongers. Artmongers have carried out many imaginative public works and community projects in the Deptford area of south London. With The Fabric of Society project (2007)...
Boz and Jaime
they introduced an unusually tender and responsive procedure into the often intrusive and heavy-handed scenario of public arts. Charged to make an outdoor mural for a café and rather under-used community centre in South East London, Forrester and Sharples asked locals to lend a piece of fabric from their homes that they particularly treasured or which had a meaning for them...
Raj
These were then photographed to the same scale and digitally printed as vertical fragments, or swatches, of cloth standing in a row. The upright panels formed a long, multicoloured mural snaking around the exterior of the building. An unashamedly decorative display from a distance, when you approached close you could read a small piece of writing on each panel: the person’s account of what the fabric meant to them...
Suckering the artwork
What an extraordinary variety of stories people had to tell! And what different emotions the fabrics aroused. The poetic device the artists employed, this unexpected relationship between the fragment of cloth and people’s lives - not a literal procedure but an analogical way of producing individual portraits - was what made this work an outstanding, original piece of public and community art.
Ana Laura Lopez and Lucia Pizzani
Uruguayan artist, Ana Laura, who designed our website, brought some 'Mate'- a South American brew, which she is sharing with Lucia, a Venezuelan artist.