linked

A PUBLIC ARTWORK, A WALK, A PIECE OF LONDONÕS HISTORY

Conceived by artist and composer Graeme Miller and commissioned by the Museum of London

In 1994, artist and composer Graeme Miller was evicted from his home of ten years. His house, along with 400 other homes, was demolished to make way for the M11 link road from Hackney Marshes to Redbridge. Plans for this road overshadowed this strip of land for nearly 70 years generating passionate controversy, blight, protest and ultimately dramatic confrontations between protesters, police and bailiffs.

Out of those events, and a century of everyday moments in East End life, comes Linked, a semi-permanent sound installation of words and music stretching across three miles of the landscape. From a hundred hours of recorded testimonies and the rekindled memories of former residents, Miller has made an invisible artwork which fills the empty space these absent buildings once occupied.

A series of 20 transmitters is concealed along the three mile route, continually broadcasting these hidden voices. Equipped with a receiver and headset, the audience will enter this secret world of sound, the voices speaking in their ears as they wander the streets, discovering an oral history of the area and a celebration of the life that continues to flow around the motorway.

A public artwork

Miller places spoken memories and stories in a matrix of sound. Fragments of speech are set with phrases of music - many recorded by local musicians and school children Š in a series of sonic portraits of each section of the route. In a true sense this is local radio.

A walk

Linked is for the pedestrian. It is a treasure trail which runs around one of LondonÕs busiest highways. With headset and map collected from local libraries audiences will be free to determine their own routes, visitors will be able to explore the area while local people reacquaint themselves with their neighbourhood.

A piece of LondonÕs history

Linked is a contemporary social archive and monument to the 400 homes demolished to complete the road. Across the generations, through parents, grandparents and, through their childhood memories, great grandparents and great great grandparents, an anecdotal cross section of an East London suburb will be built across time, spanning two world wars as well as the issues and perceptions of the present day. The resulting archive will be added to Museum of LondonÕs oral history collection.

Linked is part of LondonÕs Voices, a three year programme of events dedicated to collecting and sharing the spoken memories of Londoners from all backgrounds and of all ages. The resulting archive will be added to Museum of LondonÕs oral history collection

Mini exhibitions

An exhibition, spread across four local libraries along the route, uses evocative images, objects, leaflets, postcards and other ephemera to provide further insight into the campaign and the communities that were involved. By examining changing attitudes towards the car and the history of road building in the capital, it places MillerÕs soundscapes and the events that created it into a broader historical context. The libraries Š Leytonstone, Leyton, Harrow Green and Wanstead Š are also distribution points for the headsets and map.

Booking information 0800 389 1035

Press contacts:

Sue Lancashire and Martha Oakes at Martha Oakes PR on 020 8854 5460 moakespr@aol.com

Judith Holmes at the Museum of London on 020 7814 5502 jholmes@museumoflondon.org.uk

Notes to editors 1. Graeme Miller has made a series of sound works reflecting a sense of place, including The Sound Observatory in Birmingham (1991), and pioneered the sound walk/installation with Listening Grounds, Lost Acres with Mary Lemley created over 18 miles between Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge for Salisbury Festival and Artangel (1994) Other sound projects followed including Feet of Memory, Boots of Nottingham (1995) and Reconnaissance with Mary Lemley at Norbury Park in Surrey (1998). His theatre work includes co-founding the influential Impact Theatre Co-operative in 1978 and 2. a series of stage works: Dungeness, the Desert in the Garden (1987), A Girl Skipping (1990) and the Desire Paths (1993). Throughout this period Miller has also worked as composer for theatre, dance, TV and film. 3. Linked is part of the Museum of LondonÕs London Voices Exhibition. It is funded by Arts Council England, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Heritage Lottery Fund, Association of London Government and the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Redbridge. 4. Linked is an Artsadmin Project. 5. Linked is also linking up with Interference: Public Sound, sonic public art network www.interference.org.uk

9 April 2003