Tag: Richard Rawlins

Day 36 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up: The World Reimagined

Over the last few years, I’ve been supporting The Mighty Creatives’ annual ‘Be Mighty, Be Creatives’ fundraising campaigns.   This year is no exception.  Called The Mighty (Un)Mute, we’re aiming to raise £5,000 to support the artistic creation for one of ten Globe Sculptures in The World Reimagined art trail across Leicester, one of the most multicultural cities in the UK. 

On 5th October The TMC staff team supported the campaign by taking part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, which saw us taking a Journey of Discovery of all ten Globe Sculptures around Leicester.  This is what we discovered:

Laura-Kate Pontefract: Mother Africa at Leicester Station.

Roy Meats: The Reality of Being Enslaved at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery

Natasha Muluswela – Leicester Community Globe at Victoria Park

Lou Boyce – Stolen Legacy: the Rebirth of a Nation at Medway Community Primary School

Marcus Dove ,Abolition and Emancipation at Highfields Centre

Richard Rawlins – A Complex Triangle Indeed at Orton Square

Zita Holbourne – Still We Strive at the Clocktower

Hannaa Hamdache, Sarah Mensah & Gabrielle Ubakanma – Ecology of Existance at Highcross Centre

Lakwena Maciver – Staying Power)at Stephen Lawrence Research Centre

 Jarvis Brookfield – From Roots To Fruit at Leicester Town Hall.

Here they are in situ, in all their glory.

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on 5th October 2022. You can check out the campaign here or donate your support to it here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcomed and appreciated.

Day 32 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up: the silences of imagined conversations.

The imagined conversations between Joe Orton and Richard Rawlins accompanies us as we continue our journey of discovery into central Leicester and the site of our next Globe Sculpture by Zita Holbourne (theme: Still We Strive).

“The quintessential English cup of tea and its insidious intertwining with sugar are the cornerstone of the economic construction of Britain” Richard starts.

“Until I was fifteen, I was more familiar with Africa than my own body.” Joe retorts.

“I am an invisible man; I am a man of substance flesh and bone fibre and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible simply because you to refuse to see me,” quotes Richard from Ralph Ellison.

“I needed the invisible butler in What the Butler Saw as a symbol for the complacency of upper-middle-class lives,” Joe reminisces.

We have to leave them struggling out some meaning of their imaginary collision as we process into the city centre.  It’s a very different experience from walking up New Walk or through Highfields.  Here, we could be tourists, we could be locals, no-one knows as we’re subsumed into the anonymous flow of humanity which is experienced in perhaps all city centres.  

There are a few landmarks which indicate that we’re specifically in Leicester but the main view is of corporate retail opportunities which could be anywhere in the western world.  The landmarks and sounds which mark out this place as specifically Leicester are valuable reminders of where we are and why we are there.

Somewhat incongruously, the globe sculpture is parked right next to a takeaway food stand.  Imagining a conversation between these two objects becomes a step too far for this afternoon: despite being reminded that “our lives begin to end the day we are silent about all of the things that matter.”

The busy city centre flow picks us up and we head through the Highcross monolith to the next globe sculpture which we have a particular interest in visiting.

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on 5th October 2022. You can check out the campaign here or donate your support to it here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcomed and appreciated.

Day 31 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up: Joe Orton meets Richard Rawlins. Discuss.

Heading off back town-wards, the exertions of the afternoon are taking their toll and the group starts to straggle out along the pavements and roadsides, slowly pulling us apart.  Traffic lights and zebra crossings don’t help the group cohesion and before too long we’re taking up a lot of pavement space in our Journey of Discovery towards the next Globe Sculpture by Richard Rawlins (theme: A Complex Triangle Indeed).

Located in Orton Square which is bordered by Curve Theatre, Leicester Athena, St George’s Church  and the Exchange Building (Leicester’s very own answer to New York’s Flat Iron building), Rawlin’s work is a sculpture which pulls you up sharply with its combination of direct text and images.  If you’ve ever caught yourself saying ‘these things aren’t black and white’ this sculpture and its texts insist that on the contrary, things are very much black and white – and shades of grey too.

Imagine a conversation between Orton and Rawlins taking place in the Exchange Buildings. Orton might start with this from Loot:

Truscott:          Why aren’t you both at the funeral? I thought you were mourners.

Fay:                 We decided not to go. We were afraid we might break down.

Truscott:          That’s a selfish attitude to take. The dead can’t bury themselves, you know.

Rawlins:          ….

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on 5th October 2022. You can check out the campaign here or donate your support to it here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcomed and appreciated.

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