The Fire Within
A cultural manifesto for Wigan Borough, The Fire Within sets out a 5-year plan of themes & objectives as part of Wigan Council’s cultural strategy.
Following the transformation of Wigan’s The Galleries shopping centre into a social space for culture, STAT speaks to creative directors of The Fire Within, AL AND AL, as they look back at the formation of the project.
The Fire Within sounds a project of pride and celebration: an exposure of hidden talent. What does this project - this manifesto – mean to you and how did you as curators come to be involved?
During the summer of 2018 at a mesmeric Pemberton Brass Band rehearsal with conductor Ian Brownbill, we were thinking about the possibility of collaborating with a brass band for a new live performance project we were developing. We bumped into Maria Brewster and Debbie Chan who were researching culture in Wigan Borough on behalf of Wigan Council through Arts Council England. The researchers knew us from our solo exhibitions at FACT in Liverpool and HOME in Manchester and wondered what two international artists were doing in Pemberton! When they discovered one of us was born in Wigan and we had recently relocated our studio here, they were really excited and invited us to a World Café event at St. Peters Pavillion in Hindley. We had never thought it would be possible to make work to exhibit in our home town (the research identified Wigan Borough as one of the lowest culturally engaged and funded areas in the nation) so curiosity got the better of us and we attended to see what was planned and to meet everyone and hear what they had to say. It was a really compelling day, very strange, but we met some wonderful people, and were inspired to start thinking about how best we could help the cultural community in our home town. Later that year, during the final World café get together we enquired what was to be done with the research and how was the new cultural strategy going to be published. We’ve published a number of our own books, and been involved with many others over the last 25 years, so have a lot of experience in this. We researched other cultural strategies and realised they were the kind of documents local governments publish which nobody reads or is inspired by as they are not created by the talented cultural communities they represent, so we offered to help out with the publication. We had recently collaborated with an amazing designer, Dan Streat on our book ‘Incidents of Travel in the Multiverse’ which had been published by the Hayward Gallery in London, and we thought it was really vital to publish a visionary document, an inspirational 5 year plan for culture which would be a real declaration of intent for our home town. Luckily for Wigan, Georgina Bentley & Lesley O’Halloran from the culture team at Wigan Council & Alison McKenzie Folan the CEO were really excited by our suggestion and totally supported us as we began to collaborate with everyone to make what would become The Fire Within Manifesto. It was a beautiful moment where everyone from across the cultural community came together, and we created something magical. We worked day and night on the manifesto, researching stories, visiting artists studios & museum archives, meeting all the gallery directors and curators, building ideas and material to include in the manifesto. One of the most magical nights for us was with Wigle Dance in Leigh…. we had been capturing some great images for the manifesto and went to visit Amy and her dance company who at that time were having to rehearse in a disused Argos in the Spinning Gate Shopping Centre. We had just returned, a couple of nights before from New York, working with Philip Glass on our space opera ‘Icarus at The Edge of Time’ which premiered on Broadway, and there we were filming dancing teenagers in Leigh Argos. That evening was incredibly humbling. It got us thinking about the the hardships we had faced when we were teenagers, just like they were, the reasons we had moved away, and the spirit of our home town, the fire within this cultural community to make beautiful stuff happen in life. The manifesto text emerged from witnessing this spirit, remembering this spirit within us. Writing the manifesto enabled us to explore our own journey as artists and rediscover our roots. The place we are born inspires us, shapes us, and should be fought for. Since we returned to Wigan, we have made some of our best work. The Fire Within Manifesto is a performative document, a text born from a struggle towards liberation, a screenplay for a collective dream in which we imagine a great future for our home town together.
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| THE FIRE WITHIN MANIFESTO 2019 |
Being both a location and cultural manifesto, how do you see the space (or maybe spaces?) as part of the wider vision?
The Fire Within space emerged following our presentation of The Fire Within Manifesto to Wigan Council cabinet. It was an amazing day, everyone in the cabinet and others present knew we had created something very special together and the question turned to how we would launch our new 5 year plan for culture, what would be the best way to share our fantastic arts community with the world? The answer emerged from our own personal depression about The Galleries shopping Centre in the heart of Wigan town centre. We had been watching our town disappear every week when we went to buy fish from Lee our fish monger in market square, and we knew the council had just acquired the site and were searching for a way to regenerate Wigan town centre. It was a building which was visited by everyone in the community, and the research which had birthed The Fire Within Manifesto had identified Wigan Borough had some of the least culturally engaged communities in the nation. We wanted to reach these communities, to engage people with culture who had never been into a Gallery or Museum. So, we had this idea to transform all of the empty retail space in the atrium into a ground breaking social space for culture for all communities to enjoy, a place to showcase all of the talent in the Borough alongside unseen treasures we had found buried in the museum stores, and introduce internationally recognised artists to the Borough. The idea was to launch The Fire Within Manifesto with a festival of culture, a temporary space, but on May 11 we had over 4,000 visitors and by the end of summer, The Galleries was the only shopping centre in the UK which had reversed a ten year decline in visitor figures! It was clear The Fire Within must stay open and we began planning a new series of exhibitions to build on the success of our first summer. It is well understood the extraordinary impact culture can have to drive regeneration and inspire the creation of new dynamic communities, so The Fire Within social space for culture creates this invitation to network, share ideas, create new work, showcase local talent, it’s a destination and a home for many artists now. We’ve had national and international visitors inspired by what the Wigan cultural community has created together with its local council, it is an extraordinary achievement we are very proud to have played a part in bringing together.
Being almost equidistant from Manchester and Liverpool, how does Wigan compete? What makes Wigan the centre of a manifesto?
Wigan has a magnificent heritage, the Borough has amazing, iconic stories to tell, birthing people and ideas with international significance. The Fire Within has found a way to share some of those unique and vital stories. It was a Wiganer who ended the oldest legal system of slavery, it’s a Woman from Leigh who is worshipped as a Goddess of the Sea in Japan, Theodore Major, like Rembrandt believed he could capture all beauty, all phenomena from his home town, Theo was uniquely situated to witness across the twentieth century human relationships entangled and transformed by technology and the industrial world, his visionary oeuvre is a unique rendering of a world which has now evolved into the computer age. George Orwell was inspired to write with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity by what he saw in this town, that is why Wigan can be the centre for a manifesto, it has this extraordinary heritage, this amazing legacy and impact on the imagination. We have always believed how important it is to celebrate who you are, find a voice and express yourself, culture is the face of a place, without culture nobody can recognise who you are and what you represent. We believe making work in Wigan about our life here is fundamentally important, The Fire Within is a manifestation of that passion and love for the place we call home. Wigan has extraordinary talent with a lot of space to explore and create, historically these are the vital ingredients for the emergence of a brilliant cultural scene. The Fire Within also has hidden studios and rehearsal rooms. We have 6 bands in residence, one of which The Lathums have been signed to Island Records since they joined the family. There’s so much talent in the Borough, and for the last 2 years we have dedicated ourselves to fighting for them to be recognised and given a platform to share their work. Let’s see where we are in 2023 at the end of our five year plan!
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| THE FIRE WITHIN EXHIBITION SPACE - THE GALLERIES 2020 |
Even among the difficulties of 2020, your exhibition was a fun break from being stuck indoors. Still in turbulent times, what’s the plan this year (2021)?
It was amazing to put the show on, we had 5,000 visitors in the 5 weeks we were able to open in between lockdowns. It really is extraordinary the appetite for culture we have discovered in a place which was identified as not being engaged in culture!
Following our Wigan Boxing Day Fancy Dress film 42 which premiered on United-We-Stream and brought 250,000 people to party online together to celebrate the 42nd year of Wigan Boxing Day Fancy Dress, we are now planning a new film which captures all of the amazing bands-in-residence at The Fire Within performing at a spectacular location we are forbidden to reveal at this moment! Everybody in the music industry is talking about the amazing emerging Wigan music scene right now and The Fire Within has supported many of the talented artists on their journey, in the last year, as well as The Lathums being signed to Island records and creating incredible number one music, another of our bands now has management, and all of them have released singles, EP’s and LP’s during the last year. All of them tell us how this wouldn’t have been possible for them to do without our support. We’re very proud of how much success they have all had during this incredibly difficult year without any gigs or live performance venues open.
The Fire Within Manifesto for 2021 focuses on Health & Happiness. Wigan began 2,000 years ago as a Roman Spa known as Coccium. It was the perfect destination to heal your spirit. 2021 is also the 50th anniversary of The Turnpike, our favourite Brutalist building in the borough which was built by the local Prestwich family of architects who previously created Leigh Town Hallwhich will also be opening a new archives and exhibition space this year.
One final question… The manifesto's scattered with emojis; what's that about? Any favourites..?
Emoji’s are the hieroglyphs of our smart phones, sometimes emoji’s say it better than words! I think the love heart and heart eyes are probably our most used Emoji. Our favourites are Aubergine and Peach.
Read the manifesto and find out more at
answers
AL AND AL
questions
Pete Mercer