St. Luke's Church, Grimethorpe

Anne-Marie’s practice revolves around site, place, research and documentation. She has carried out a number of site specific temporary installations, starting with an in-depth analysis of the place, its historical, social, cultural and architectural context. Out of this process arise ideas for installations and interventions.

Anne-Marie has worked with the sounds of a building as a working machine, played when the building was not in use. She explores the impact of text on our perceptions of a place. On the façade of an unused shop in Glasgow she devised a fragmented sentence – ‘slowly… you begin… to be… erased’ – which then began to reflect the actual process that the building was going through. And in response to the showcasing of Mackintosh works she constructed an installation of cabinets, lighting, glass, and MDF that functioned as a reaction to the display of paintings on the gallery walls.

At Grimethorpe, she took as a starting point a quote from Mies van der Rohe:
‘We must understand what is old to appreciate what is new’. She explored the area’s changing form, from rural farmland, to the first industrial development of small scale brick and glass works, and then the major changes that arose from coalmining, and the subsequent demoralisation following the pit closure in 1992.

Workshops

On 3 occasions local people were invited to visit the Church for tea and cakes on Friday afternoon, to explore with Anne-Marie the theme ‘What does Grimethorpe mean to you?’ These workshops explored images, objects and words that encapsulated positive and negative aspects of the identity of Grimethorpe,

‘What does Grimethorpe mean to you?’ Anne-Marie has put together a book of the words and phrases that arose from these sessions.

‘Orientation’ she has also compiled a visual record of the temporary interventions in the Church.

‘Observe’ is a small black book comprising fragments of text that reveal the strong visual images that Anne-Marie encountered during her period working in Grimethorpe.

‘An exploration of one place’ this is a large black bound book full of a fascinating and eclectic collection of photos., maps, text, sketches and other documentation arising from the research and exploration that Anne-Marie carried out during her residency.

Copies of all these documents can be seen at St. Luke’s Church