Illuminate 2022
Friday 4th March
The theme for 2022 was T R E E S and what grows from them and lives in them.
Poet WES VIOLA was commissioned by Illuminate to write his Animals Live in My Lungs on the theme, below.
Free lantern-making workshops rolled out across Bermondsey and Rotherhithe in libraries, pubs, churches, TRA halls, community centres and clubs.
Out of willow and tissue paper our communities built squirrels, owls, blossom, birds nests, birds, water drops, flowers, dragon flies, Queen bees, seed pods, leaves, bats, even a tree house.
The SHED made their surprise 2022 float – a growing tree lantern.
LOCAL ARTISTS delivered almost 50 free workshops demonstrating how to build with willow and paper, local photographers WENDY NOWAK and BERNARD CREELY and film-maker STEWART MORGAN documented the workshops and the processions, and local people gave time and energy to collaboration between Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.
At MAYFLOWER HALL, Neptune Street, SUE, JEAN and THORA served teas, coffees, hot chocolates and ELLIE’s famous FINNISH CHURH cinnamon buns for the start of the Rotherhithe procession. At ST JAMES’S CHURCH, Gary, Paul and Adrian served hot soup for their gathering lantern-makers.
1,000 locals walked into Southwark Park with their hand-made lanterns. GARY JENKINS of St James’s church, Bermondsey, accompanied by ST MICHAEL’S COLLEGE SAMBA BAND and MARJAANA HARKONEN of the Finnish church Rotherhithe, accompanied by young people’s chants of ‘SAVE OUR TREES!’, led the processions.
WHITE WATCH at Dock Head fire station opened the event from the bandstand and served free hot pizza to the crowd.
The CEILIDH TREE BAND got the crowds barn-dancing amongst the trees in Southwark Park.
For more photos look at Festival Gallery 2022.
ANIMALS LIVE IN MY LUNGS
Wes Viola
thanks to Patrick Kingwell of Friends of Southwark Park
A friend once told me that writing is like having an external brain.
If you have a thought, and you write it,
then that thought exists outside of you.
Once it’s written, the thought exists outside of your body
and it stays there.
You don’t need to keep it in your brain any more.
Once you can write, the whole world becomes your brain.
You can put thoughts anywhere.
Most animals can’t do that,
so all their thoughts (near enough) stay inside them.
Because we (humans) can -
because we have external brains -
we like to make believe we’re not really animals.
But we are. We are animals
and we have to remember it.
Here’s another organ we can have outside of ourselves
as well as inside:
lungs. (breathe in)
The trees and the parks are like our external lungs
they breathe for us
they purify the air.
The trees are our external lungs.
Animals live in my lungs:
this and that,
squirrel and bat;
these and those,
bees and crows.
In a picture from ninety-three years ago
in the carefully catalogued drawers
of the Local History Library on Borough High Street,
Alfred and Ada Salter hold spades
as one of my lungs is planted in the ground.
The mayor looks on in his chain
at the official ceremony of the planting of my lung.
People are gathered all around
to see the lung go into the earth
knowing it will flourish.
The bottom of my lung is submerged in the dark soil -
but this lung is so long and tall, even at its planting,
that it goes right out of the top of the photograph,
as if reaching into heaven,
to purify the air of heaven.
So here we are surrounded by our lungs
hundreds of them put here in the late 19th century
at a cost of two shillings a piece -
a cheap price for a vital organ.
Animals live in our lungs.
They sing here. They breathe here.
We are animals.
Let’s sing
Let’s breathe
Let’s celebrate
Our lungs.
Great thanks to those behind the scenes: Frog Morris http://www.frogmorris.net/, Cathy Wren, Georgia Clark, Gail Dickerson, Larry Broomhead, Annabel Stockman, and to give us all an essential burst of energy when we needed it, the one and only Jemma Bicknell, ex T&T.
Free Lantern Making Workshops
Illuminate brought just under fifty lantern-making workshops to the communities of Rotherhithe and Bermondsey in preparation for the two lantern processions on 4th March into Southwark Park
Time & Talents, Wednesday 9th February 4.30pm – 6.30pm
The Old Mortuary/St Marychurch St, London SE16 4JE @Time_Talents Thank you Devon Goodrich and T&T for hosting!
Blue Anchor Library, Tuesday 15th February 10.30 a.m
The Blue Market Pl, London SE16 3UQ
Galleywall Nature Reserve, Tuesday 15th February 2.30 – 4.30 p.m
Galleywall Rd, London SE16 3PB @BermondseyTrees @GalleywallNR Thank you Sarah and Jane and Trees for Bermondsey and GNR for hosting!
Dockland Settlements Friday 18th February 4.00 – 5.30 pm 400 Salter Rd SE16 5AA http://www.docklandsettlements.org.uk/rotherhithe-activities.html Thank you for hosting, Dannica!
Finnish Church, Albion Street, (opposite Albion School) Friday 18th February 2.00-4.00 pm @Merimieskirkko Thank you Mervi for hosting!
Art of Isolation upper floor Surrey Quays Shopping Centre Friday 18th February time 12.00 noon – 5.00 pm @rodkitsonart Thank you Rod for hosting!
Big Local Works, Bermondsey Market Place Saturday 19th February 2.30 pm – 5 pm Thank you Luds at BLW!
Mayflower Hall, 1 Neptune Street SE16 7JP Rotherhithe, Sunday 20th February 10.30 am – 1.00 pm Thanks to Sue for her great hospitality.
Canada Water Library, Canada Water, Wednesday 23rd February 5.00 pm – 7.45 pm Great thanks to Faith and Wes for making this possible.
Market Place, The Blue, Bermondsey, Saturday 26th February 12.00 noon – 3.00 p.m Thank you The Blue!
Wade Hall, Dickens Estate, Parker’s Row SE1 2DH, Bermondsey Saturday 26th February 10.30 am-1.00 pm Thank you for hosting, Ilona and Sharon!
London Bubble (opposite The Ship pub), 5 Elephant Lane, Rotherhithe SE16 4JD, Sunday 27th February 10.00 am-12.30 pm and 2.00 pm – 4.30 pm @LBubble Thanks Lucy!
The Gregorian (pub) 96 Jamaica Rd SE16 4SQ, Bermondsey, next to St James’s church, Wednesday 2nd March 6.30pm – 9pm ( food available) Thank you, Cambridge!
Participating schools:
Albion Primary School
Alfred Salter Primary School
Galleywall Primary School
St. James’s Primary School
Riverside Primary School
St Michael’s Catholic College
Redriff Primary School
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Gomm Road St John’s Catholic Primary, Canada Water
Participating organisations:
Trees for Bermondsey
Galleywall Nature Reserve
Blue Anchor Library, Bermondsey
St James’s Church, Bermondsey
Bizzie Bodies, Docklands Settlement, Rotherhithe
Youth Generators, Paper Garden, Surrey Docks/Canada Water
Surrey Docks Farm, Surrey Docks
The Shed, Elephant Lane, Rotherhithe
London Bubble Theatre, Rotherhithe
Finnish Church, Rotherhithe
Time and Talents, Rotherhithe
Mayflower TRA Hall, Rotherhithe
Canada Estate TRA Hall, Rotherhithe
Bede House bedehouse.org.uk at Wade Hall, Dickens Estate
Bede Youth Adventure Projects, Bermondsey
Big Local Works, The Blue, Bermondsey
Dockland Settlements, Rotherhithe
Trinity Childcare, Surrey Docks
Wade Hall, Dickens Estate, Bermondsey
St Michael’s College Samba Band
The Gregorian pub
LFB, White Watch, Dock Head
Sands Films
Cherry Garden Hall