NIGHT 11
Night 11. Monday 28th November 2022.
Suddenly we have to talk to people on the telephone and in real life. It’s looking more and more like we may need to stay up on the roof and go for the stretch/original target of £100,000. The solar survey results will come back to us this week so we’ll have exact costs and need a meeting with Tom who’s working with us on energy efficiency surveying to plot out how we push this forward in a whole street way for insulation amid the hotch potch grant access for individual households. There is quite a lot that is stacking up for January.
I’m flagging - catching up on emails and teaching work and sorting out the song. Time is ticking and soon the BBC crew will be here. They arrive at 5pm. I set up the bed and extra lights and they rehearse. There is a massive thunder clap. The sky is a strange misty rose and lightning strikes flash though no rain appears. There is a knock at the door and a shadowy figure appears. In long tweed coat, Sarah introduces herself as a parent at the school and editor and she is bearing the gift of a book written by Nancy Campbell. It is called ‘Thunderstone.’ Nancy has ‘50 words for Snow’ and a ‘Library of Ice’ and I ‘ve followed her artic adventuring and poetry since meeting at Kaleid Editions exhibition for expanded forms of the book. She was showing ‘How To Say I Love You in Greenlandic’ and I was there with an erupting pop-up filing cabinet. The subtitle of this new work is “a true story of losing one home and finding another.’ It is only later I find the neatly written card inside ‘Dear Hilary and Dan, I thought that this tale of the people and places that hold us as the storms gather and the challenges of living in a space in which possessions and emotions often threaten to tumble, might help you. So I hope you enjoy this gift from us both. It was believed that lightning would not strike a house that held a thunderstone’. Ours does not hold a thunderstone but it now holds this book. Thank you both. I trust it is enough as I scale the metal ladders hoping not to feel the sudden force of electricity. Lightning used to obsess me. Stories of people who’d survived strikes, Walter De Maria’s lightning field land art in New Mexico. I wanted to be a meteorologist/storm chaser. I made work attempting to translate ‘What The Thunder Said’ - a concert for radio waves and lightning flash. Now I just want to be safe on the roof.
We stand tensely on the street under black umbrellas waiting to go live on the BBC London news the sky. The sky has cleared and stars are visible. Pippa has agreed to talk on camera. There are strict time limits. Tilo and son return from drum practice and watch, Sharon passes by and agrees to film the action on mobile phone. Dan’s put bright LED panel lights inside to illuminate the writing in our windows ‘Every home a POWER STATION’ ‘crowdfunder.co.uk/power-station.’ A big pledge came through out of the blue that took us over the 50,000 mark so we could say live on air we’re half way there – but they don’t ask us. They wait in the dank empty street for the feed to go live and we shuffle feet in anticipation. The framing is typical. Treat it as a light moment at the end of the news and proceed to undermine it by saying that coincidentally, just today the government has committed billions to insulation. Brilliant. Already there are grants available, we’re trying our best to make access to these clear but it isn’t. It’s a nightmare of bureaucracy and means testing and EPC ratings and barriers to actual action. It isn’t enough.
The routine is wearing. Towel dry the relentless wet. Collect bedding. Shove it through the windows. Tonight was harder as we reached a major milestone and then decided to keep on pushing so that it now feels like we’re at base camp in need of replenished supplies and energy. The BBC news piece hasn’t brought in lots of pledges - we didn’t hold out for that. We’re at £53,110 which is 106% of our first target so basically 6% there or is it? There is £22,592 left in the Aviva match pot so let’s aim to for that - £75,702 + £22,592 = £98,294 and so we’re really aiming for another around £24,000 of pledges. It is doable! If maybe confused, inaccurate maths as I attempt calculations from my sleeping bag. How many more nights will it take and what can we do to speed it up?
We both check the crowdfunder too often slipping into glazed neutral. Concerned supporters want us off the roof but we need this final push. It’s a misty night. Back in the BBC news studio the presenter dedicated the weather to Hilary and Dan - I like that. A goods train passes. The air hangs low and after the exposure of news I feel more vulnerable. The trees have lost a lot of leaves since we began - this is the 11th night. It’s December this week. The advent countdown to Christmas will begin . I’ve never looked forward to Christmas more.
A Positive News article came out and I sigh with relief and gratitude. It actually represented what we are doing. We were called artists rather than ‘mum and dad’ or ‘local activists’, or ‘filmmaker and wife’. It shouldn’t matter but it does. How you name things. That is what I am. It is not something shameful to hide away. It is not lacking in power or agency. We see all that we do as part of an ever evolving, public, work of art and imagination. We grapple with what it might mean to be ‘solar punks’ and how to build a solar punk visual language that combines the surreal and the material realities of life now - to build imperfectly in the present amid the damp despairing air of contemporary Britain – an act of belief, repair and resistance. I value the reference to ‘master magicians’ the journalist makes– another childhood fascination. Houdini. Stage craft. The art of illusion and transformation. “Magic is all about structure, You’ve got to take the observer from the ordinary, to the extraordinary, to the astounding.” (Ricky Jay, Magician). We are not attempting any sleight of hand tricks but we are trying to illuminate and make the extraordinary in the ordinary we all occupy. In magic there is the pledge, the turn and the prestige. The pledges are continuing to arrive on the the crowdfunder page bringing us up to £54,000. A pledge is a solemn promise. Much of what we do is a promise. To do what we set out to do - a commitment to act.
Burgundy says ‘sweet dreams.’ She worries about soggy bedding. So do I. It’s just so soggy everywhere. Katy messages wishing us dry nights. Gina hopes the bats and bugs enjoyed the lullaby too. I haven’t seen any recently. The air is just alive with water droplets. I see a giant bumble bee drunkenly navigating across the rooftops and worry for it and the world. This morning I bump into Sarah who’s been a dynamo of organising POWER STATION action on a nearby street. She works in major incident response and she’s tired. The deep collective tiredness of cascading crises. Dusty pink mists move in across the rooftops. I can’t help but check in to the blue light of the phone screen and instead of doom I see the Northern Lights. People are posting images on the many Hebridean island appreciation groups I ‘m in. I’m glad I didn’t unsubscribe. The skies there are shimmering with glowing green light.
