LODE and Liverpool
LODE, Liverpool and The Yellow House
Philip Courtenay was introduced to George McKane by Bryan Biggs at the Bluecoat in January 1992. In those days George McKane was already a local legend. Founded in 1986 by George McKane, Yellow House has always been open to everyone and is committed to the social and emotional well being and development of young people.
For the LODE project to fulfil the ambition to have the LODE cargo unloaded and then taken care of by people in Merseyside, this introduction was the beginning of a creative relationship that continues to this day. In this project a partnership was forged based on trust and openness.
Today, as before, Yellow House young people promote tolerance and concern for others, understanding and acceptance of difference in others - and build self - confidence and self-esteem in those who have been neglected or under-valued.
As Yellow House founder George McKane says:
Yellow House takes a holistic approach to working with excluded young people. Working on a daily basis providing a safe secure environment for those young people normally excluded from decision making enabling them to participate in all aspects of community life, including employment or further education as well as offering young people the opportunity to participate in major projects not only to develop their own social and personal skills but also to develop as active citizens in today’s world. Activities target those who are normally excluded or considered hard to reach, particularly those with social, environmental, physical or learning disadvantages. We offer a safety net for young people who have fallen through the regular and statutory organisations at a vital time of their development, introducing them to new ideas, people, organisations and skills, to life, theatre, art, music, literature, travel, friendship, debate, discussions. Yellow House works in schools and with local youth agencies on anti-name calling and anti-bullying and diversity workshops and then offers young people a place in Yellow House free from such name calling and bullying, alongside other young people from around Merseyside and from different cultural and diverse backgrounds to create an atmosphere of trust, honesty and developing together. Yellow House is a vitally important support organisation in today’s world between childhood and maturity, between school (especially Special Educational Needs School) and employment or FE, between isolation, loneliness and friendship, where you can feel free to choose your own path and receive support (not ridicule or criticism) to make your own decisions.
George McKane, The Yellow House 2017.
The LODE Cargo arrives in Liverpool and unloaded by The Yellow House on Hartley Quay 12 September 1992 at 1.30pm
Philip Courtenay found that Yellow House were the ideal partners to realise this project. The LODE proposal includes a scenario in the performance of unloading the LODE cargo that is ceremonial, taking care of something precious.
Initial thoughts about this performance included using white rushes, as used in ritual in Chinese traditional practices, where the white rushes signify and emphasise something of a sense of value, and in this way give the cargo a meaning and value through the physical effort and care involved in the unloading.
In the first performance of unloading the cargo of crates onto the quayside in Liverpool, a number of triangular sail shaped canvases were laid out on the cobbles of Hartley Quay (echoing a design theme in the LODE leaflet), preparing the ground before the unloading. Yellow House participants then used marker pens to draw on these white sheets the LODE line, but also mark the places where cargo was made in preparation for the placing of the crates of cargo from these locations on the quayside in their precise and linear relationships.
The Yellow House installs the LODE installation at the BLUECOAT GALLERY 12 September 1992 at 3.00pm & de-installs the LODE cargo at the BLUECOAT GALLERY on 3 October 1992 at 2.00pm
Having carefully unloaded the cargo of crates upon the prepared ground at Hartley Quay, the Yellow House carried the cargo across Chavasse Park and to the Bluecoat where the cargo was installed alongside the crates of Super8 film footage documenting the LODE line and the places where the cargo was made.
The crates were then very carefully opened and the contents examined by both Yellow House and the public audience. Sand from the west of Ireland, leaves from Java, plastic toys from Germany, sticks of wood from Colombia and Australia.
Again, this completes a part of the great circle, in that the cargo and documentation are received by the Yellow House and public as if it was more like a gift, and the shared ownership translated into an activity that transformed the cargo and the gallery installation into something being created, ongoing, rather than being seen as commodities or raw material.
The Yellow House take the LODE cargo from the BLUECOAT GALLERY to Hartley Quay on 3 October 1992 at 3.00pm
Reflections
As part of the Video Positive programme 1993, Philip Courtenay and George McKane, in a session also including Eddie Berg, made a presentation about the LODE Project to an audience that included curators and museum and gallery professionals. What was flagged by contributions from this audience, as the stand out quality of the LODE project, was the transformation of the gallery space.
This is a key quality in the work, a quality that embraces the connecting of things, the articulation of realities, through spontaneous actions, and the creation of juxtapositions in a way that is non-hierarchical, untrammelled by conventional notions of form.
This kind of creative space is outside the usual comfort zone of those with the role of presenting art, but this kind of work creates a sense of art as something alive, and present in the audience, not the artwork. Relational aesthetics? 1992?
This is a key quality in the work, a quality that embraces the connecting of things, the articulation of realities, through spontaneous actions, and the creation of juxtapositions in a way that is non-hierarchical, untrammelled by conventional notions of form.
This kind of creative space is outside the usual comfort zone of those with the role of presenting art, but this kind of work creates a sense of art as something alive, and present in the audience, not the artwork. Relational aesthetics? 1992?
