An Urban Tale

'An Urban Tale...'

at the House of Fairytales
Candlelit Matinée

photos...

'An Urban Tale...' brought to life through mobilography and a series of mobile phone text messages...

*Mobilography (from "mobilis" (lat.) - movable and "grapho" (gr.) - to write) is a branch of photography that creates pictures using such devices with built-in cameras, as cellular phones, palm pilots, compasses, binoculars, lighters, etc, not originally intended to be used for professional photography.

Artist Tracey Moberly constructs an 'Urban Tale...' with visitors and participants of the Candlelit Matinee programme. Tracey will be collecting the last three images from participants mobile phones using bluetooth. One or two images from each phone will be selected to build up a visual story board. The photos will be printed and viewed within the space, with participants selecting a variety of story boards from this.

Phase two of the project will be developed with participants text messages building up a literary narrative that illustrates another story working alongside the visual narrative.

"The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what painting lost when the camera made them reproducible. Its function is nostalgic. It is the final empty claim for the continuing values of an oligarchic, undemocratic culture. If the image is no longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing must be made mysteriously so."
Ways Of Seeing by John Berger

The House of Fairytales in association with Shunt Lounge present...

Candlelit Matinée

To build our profile amongst contemporary teenagers the house of fairy tales team have joined forces with the Shunt Lounge, Platform Magazine and Kids Company to work on a project specifically for young people aged 16-21. Shunt Lounge is in a labyrinth of underground brick passageways that have played host to many of the most creative events and artists of the last couple of years.

Since November 2008, The House of Fairy Tales teen project have been working with a dynamic team of budding artists, performers, musicians and event organisers on an innovative creative project event which culminates at an event and installation in March 2009. The name Candlelit Matinée has been coined by the young teams as a romantic oxymoron describing their place at the doorway of adulthood.

Our young players have been working in teams to develop site-specific art installations, loosely themed around fairy tales, in a combination of media, most prominently sculpture, performance, music and film. The results will be presented to the public in an all day event at the theatre/club space Shunt Vaults, targeting audiences whose age-range reflects that of the artists.

The young teams have been developing their ideas through a series of workshops that have included animation (at the BFI); sculpture and ideas planning (at Gavin Turk's studio); drawing and design with a difference (at Stoke Newington Airport with the team from Drawing Room and narrative illustration mag Le Gun). These have been creative days which have given the young A Level Students and Foundation students a taste of things to come.

Our young artists' projects at the Shunt event will include interactive play and art forms by these teams including a Beckettian installation and performance play based on a Chinese short story (Waiting Room for Death); a gingerbread making factory with a contemporary witch (Hansel and Gretel); a macabre fairground; an alchemist's laboratory spied through a lens; an accumulation of King Midas casualties; the Fairy Tale Museum and loads more.

Our partnership charity Kids Company will be bringing a programme of performances and boxing training staged inside a real boxing ring.