FROM ASHES

building Bristol out of paper, culminating 21-22 Feb at M Shed.

Over the past 8 months, we’ve been building Bristol. Alongside our fellow Bristolians, we’ve constructed nearly 2000 miniature buildings out of paper, all based on the architecture of our city.

In community centres, libraries, at festivals and markets, in artist studios and in people’s homes, Bristolians have been busy making 1:220 scale models of where we live. The builings are sometimes fiddly to construct (especially the one we need most of, Bristol’s iconic colourful “winged terrace” or butterfly terrace” houses) and they need a steady hand. There is something very delicate about the process; the precision required to get it right is something that requires your attention and focus. Hundreds of people have been part of the building process, often choosing to build a house that looks like the one they live in. Or they recognise one that looks like the house they grew up in, or their mum's house, or one they lived in as a student- and they make that one instead.

Now the building process has almost finished, and we’re getting ready to install the city at M Shed in Bristol. Then, we’ll cover the city in ash, and over the course of the weekend, the public will help us to carefully brush the ash away from the city.

From Ashes is a project that thinks about recovery, resilience, home and the future of our cities. As we’ve been working alongside our fellow Bristolian’s over the past 8 months people have talked about loss, regeneration, climate change, the housing crisis, Pompeii, gentrification, the second world war, technological change, the joy of using our hands, communality, natural disasters, the importance of art, bus lanes, high streets, the traffic in Redcliffe, the foxes in Easton. At a workshop in the Central Library, a man asked me about the significance of ash in our project. I told him about the origins of the work in Japan back in 2015, and how, in this Bristolian version, the ash was more of a metaphorical material. The future potential disaster in this city is less likely to involve ash (volcano, nuclear disaster) than it is water (the Avon rising to swallow up the city centre). He told me a story about boats travelling back and forth between Bristol and New York after WW2. The boats needed ballast on the Bristol-New York leg, and so the rubble and ashes of the city post-Blitz was used. This was then used to construct a dock in Manhatten, which still stands today. It’s called Bristol Basin.

On Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd February, we’ll be at M Shed each day 10:30-4, and we’ll be attempting to excavate the city. Its free, you can drop in any time and there’s no need to book. We hope you can join us! Find out more here.

From Ashes is originally co-produced by 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (JP) and Forest Fringe (UK). The UK iteration is supported by Bristol City Council Imagination Fund, Arts Council England, Compass Festival, Bristol Museums and M Shed, Filwood Community Centre, Bristol Libraries and Bricks. Generously supported by Hobs Reprographics Bristol.

Thanks to Claudia Collins, Anna Wilson, Ania Varez, Jo Hellier and Jasmine Loveys, the other Bristol artists we worked with, who helped us include as many people as we could in the workshops.