Spitalfields Church

Spitalfields, London, 1985

For Whitechapel Gallery's open exhibition Bow Gamlan Ensemble performed at Spitalfields Church, London.

The stained glass windows and height of Spitalfields church stimulated ideas for this performance. Strobing flares on long sticks were waved around outside the stained glass windows to create huge moving projected images of the stained glass images around the inside space, whilst lorry tyre ‘bagpipes’ were inflated by air-pumps, so that the bamboo ‘arms’ containing reeds gesticulated wildly in the ceiling like dark unruly phantom forms. Bruce Lacey filmed the whole event by crawling around the floor, between the instruments, filming upwards.