Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Everything Is Going To Be Alright

12:16 / 19.12.01

there is an art installation in linford road, clapton: an old orphanage, long gone, but with the facade remaining, which looks like a greek/roman temple, has a neon sign across the top saying 'everything is going to be alright'. it was supposed to be there for just a few months but that was over a year ago. i find it amazingly reassuring! and it looks beautiful at night. i wonder if hackney, with the highest rate of mental illness in the country, dare take it down now....

12:43 / 19.12.01

reassuring or a sardonic comment on the ineffectual nature of care institutions for offer no more than warm tea and sympathy at best... you decide.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:16 / 19.12.01

This is Martin Creed, isn't it?

15:27 / 19.12.01

sorry, i really can't remember who's work it is. it's just something that for once i'm not cynical about, although saying that, it could easily be ironic or mean a whole lot of other things. i choose to take it at face value. perhaps it should've been placed at the entranceway to hackney town hall....

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

22:25 / 19.12.01

Pretty sure it's Creed, who I think gets a very bad press precisely because he does do lovely things like this every so often. I don't think layers of interpretation shoudl be ruled out, but if its the one I'm thinking of what I felt when I saw it was mainly a sort of yearning - a desire to make everybody feel better about the way things aren't all right yet. A kind of arthuggle.

22:43 / 19.12.01

i knew huggles would come into it somewhere....

11:56 / 20.12.01

it is martin creed, i can verify this as an ex-resident of the road in question (actually called linscott road, but that's pedantic). like the arthuggle idea - have to say that it always made me feel kinda warm inside. one thing used to occur to me, most of the residents on that street ain't got too much cash, for example our downstairs neighbour was a single mum who obviously had a fuckin hard life (although she had good parties when she could get rid of the kid for a night), and i used to wonder whether people would think "well it's easy for Mr Creed as a successful artist who's made a fat public sculpture to say everything's going to be alright, but how does that apply to me?". it's probably my own middle-class guilt coming out. I've heard conflicting reports on what the residents thought of it - when we moved in it was rumoured that there'd been a petition to get rid of it, but in a recent guardian article i read that they'd petitioned to keep it. i hope the latter is the case.

[ 18-01-2002: Message edited by: Mutant Cyclopean Lentil ]

10:00 / 21.12.01

i assumed there was a fair bit of irony in the statement. lower clapton not being the richest part of the world. but it could be taken in other ways.

you're right about the street name. i usually have a head like an a-z but should've checked.

12:51 / 17.01.02

I actually much preferred this piece when (about this time last year) some of the electrics went which made it look like it said, "Everything is go right."

I kind of liked that, mainly because I was just about to fuck off for a while, and, rather than the reassuring but ultimately rather passive original message, this accidental one implied a more positive, proactive approach to things.

08:14 / 18.01.02

[ 18-01-2002: Message edited by: Mutant Cyclopean Lentil ]

15:00 / 18.01.02

Haca, south of the river is a red herring and I claim my five pounds.
Alan Moore identifies your area's name as coming from "Hakon", and who are you going to listen to, him, or some wanky community noticeboard outside the town hall?