Elementor #935 – tanithmab.co.uk

the FOLK trilogy

FOLK

F2LK

FOLK Heywood

a series of events across .. exploring...

Folk

Carlton Club – date

I became friends with Jennifer Reid the famous Lancashire Ballad singer from Middleton through my friend Leah Curran. I was blown away by Jen’s boldness, ambition and sense of duty. Jen affirmed that I am a Folk Artist and that we could explore working-classness in England through it. In our first Folk event Jen curated the music and I curated the art. Tommy Ryoma’s Mercedes knife glinted as 50 of us sang Industrial Revolution ballads sung to the rhythm of looms. Grace Clifford’s fluorescent plastic horse brasses and Tanith Mab’s LED indoor lettuce farm painting soundtracked by Cruckle’s circuit-bent toy rave. Dudley Dream-Walsh performed their radically honest writing amongst Basit and Suriyah’s Urdu magazines and Luke Hemingway’s Utopian Bolton costumes hung as Chermansog bellowed.

F2LK

Carlton Club – date

Fallen Lemon’s realistic blue raspberry vivarium sits stage front as Fallen Lemon and The Grand Tour sensitively sing ‘Imagining Impossible Fruits’ an EP by Fallen Lemon about blue raspberries growing on the site of the Battle of Naseby. Tanith Mab’s diorama of a grape hospital (inspired by the DaVinci Grape Surgery) is lit on the covered pool table next to Thea Luckcock’s diorama of anthropomorphic orange peels eating dinner. The static artworks are soundtracked by Ada Bekkouche’s screwed up farmed internet sounds. Hannah Kay Warren stamps on fruit and eggs on the field on a contact mic’ed platform in high heels while girls dressed in matching silver dresses dig the ground with their shoes. Jennifer Reid leads a Trad farming song sing around as everyone sits in a circle among, Anna Cloughs woven hay and iron rods industrial creatures and Nathan Taylor’s stamped balloons

Jennifer Reid performance Anna Clough sculpture Nathan Taylor sculpture

Silver Girls Performance

Fallen Lemon and The Grand Tour

FOLK Heywood

Carlton Club – date

By applying the logic ‘Folk is everything, folklore is being made all around us all the time without us knowing. Folk is not just middle class people in the countryside with banjos’. Myself and Jennifer Reid applied and received funding from the Culture Co-Op to bring our FOLK event to Heywood in Rochdale.

The main visual of the event is the blue raspberry – a symbol myself and Fallen Lemon love dearly. An artificial non existent fruit. Mostly used in vapes and slushies. ‘Folk is a blue raspberry’. And ‘Folk is a JD Bag’ coined by Jennifer Reid we embarked on bringing the question to Heywood ‘What does modern folk look like?’

Jennifer Reid performance Anna Clough sculpture Nathan Taylor sculpture

Ada Bekkouche’s DIY mirror pyramid sound system spilled foraged internet sound from the front of the church altar. Hidden amongst the pews you could find; Basement Wishes grandmother’s sewing machine from Pakistan, a PC showing The Grand Tour’s minecraft farm sculpture, Grace Clifford’s assemblages from chocolate horses to bronze cast workwear. On the wall was Tommy Ryoma’s Bury music video of wristwatches and car sales. And hung from a column was Tanith’s paintings of an industrial meadow. Fallen Lemon, The Grand Tour and Louise B graced the chancel with songs about blue raspberries

And Jennifer Reid led a sing around of Industrial Revolution work songs that were sung on the streets of Victorian North Manchester. This was immediately followed by Yem Gel’s folk trance rave with lights, shadows and dancing to end the night.

Tanith