At this time of year, far away at the North Pole, elves – some people believe – are frantically working to wrap gifts ready for Santa Claus to deliver around the world. Who can say if that is true, but here in the U.K, while people have been lighting Chanukah candles and others are preparing for Christmas, shopping, baking, carol-singing or not…a team of artists are working their socks off to get ready for a collaborative installation on Winter Solstice, Friday Dec 21st at the Regency Town House Annexe Basement. Our research and development project Snow Q– a reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen story along contemporary themes – began at Summer Solstice six whole months ago. And now we are almost ready to show you – for one day only – what we’ve been up to! We hope you’ve booked tickets (free) and can come along. Wear woollies! It will be zimno zimno/ccccccold. For those who can’t, we’re making a documentary about it and will be uploading that and some sound recordings after the project next year.
Right now the visuals team Dagmara and Wendy are putting up the artwork with help from Regency Town House’s curator Phil Blume. (Dagmara is sewing as I type.. ) Amy Clark and David Manion from Glyndebourne have not only very generously lent us the most extraordinary light equipment but already installed it for us – bear in mind this is a historic building with no sockets! Simon Yapp our sound engineer is installing VGA cables and Rasberry Pi’s. Nevermind speaking Ponglish! They’re talking keystoning, video mapping … Plus there is lumens to take into account … obviously. (Others of us use notebooks, pencils – cut and paste is the pinnacle of our technical achievement …)
Rita mutters lines to herself and sleeps with poems under her pillow. Mark stays awake. Ellie dreams phrasing and tone. Emails fly back and forth non-stop. Phone calls, meetings. Apparently we’re still 1 projector short …
Looking back at the last 6 months, we want to thank all of you who have been following us via this blog. Thank you for taking the time to read about our journey from tentative ‘what-are-we-doing?’ right through to: ‘well whatever it is, we’re doing it, NOW!’ And a huge thank you to those of you who talked to us and let us include your thoughts in our posts. You’ve enriched them and made this blog much more interesting.
Please stay with us. Your support and any feedback you care to give make all the difference. Without you we’d be a sorry bunch of elves indeed. Enjoy the Rasberry Pi!
By Maria Jastrzębska
Photos at Regency Town House Annexe Basement by Wendy Pye
This blog was originally published on Snow Q Project‘s website on 17 December 2018.