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Eight ways to speakNina EdgePublished online: 19 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Nina Edge (1996) Eight ways to speak, Third Text, 10:34, 103-107, DOI:10.1080/09528829608576602

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103

Eight Ways to SpeakNina Edge

Announced on the flyer as installations andperformances with guided tours, 'The Seed TheRoot' promised "a fantastical journey", acollaboration by artists Ouditt, Zaidi andassociates, produced by the Moti Roti company.A fantastical journey is common art copy, a guidedtour — more, a cherry on the cream of tourism.A map detailing eight installations in streetsbetween Shoreditch and Aldgate EastUnderground stations marks a route devoid of artdesignated arenas. Audiences to Moti Roti eventshave come to expect intelligent, gentle andchallenging work, combining contemporary andauthentic diversity. Book now, eat cherry.

Number one on the map is inside a huge coveredarea, high ceilinged and day-lit, a cathedral ofsimple trade: Spitalfields Market itself. Passing thepromises of Mexican, Italian, Jewish, English andAsian cafe life, which encircle tastefully arrangedbric-a-brac, walk on. Passing fairground leftovers,upended, subdued and immobile in the absenceof children. The place is huge, echoing with itsnow gentrified volume, echoing vitality; footballsand netballs trapped by perimeter nets bounceinSpitalfields Market deep in the heart of the city.The city gents, announced in advance by the bleatof vodaphones, stride as if they had a purpose,buttock seams on grey suits straining as if they hada higher than necessary calorie intake. Seated awayfrom the cafe's and stalls, away from the activityintermittently dotted on ledges and steps, arepeople who look as if they need a good rest.Raggedly dressed and alone, sheltering from thesky, oddments of the public enjoy a kind of privacyin this public space. They too are passing, passingtime.

There is a man, old, dark, seated with legsdouble-crossed, cradling a stringed instrument ofthe lute family. The cloth on his head is striped,as is his shirt and instrument. Beautiful. We makeeye contact, a greeting, a passing on. Next to thehoarding marked Spitalfields Market Opera is theMoti Roti Box Office, number one on the map, thepoint of departure. As if by magic the tour guideappears and gathers his tourists together for a brief

introduction. He cautions us that we must keepto schedule, returning unguided for extendedviewing. "The artists' intention is to deliver a tickleunder the belly", says the guide. We are keepingour heads down, not convinced that we want ourbellies tickled, when we hear music.

A line of Somali women accompanied by a manemerge from the box office. Clad in very purecolours, green, pink and white broderie-anglaise,they deliver the very pure sound of tambour anddrum rhythm, call and response vocals, as theycross to the hoarding marked Spitalfields MarketOpera. Here they join the striped gentleman, nowthe central player and singer. He is transformed,a star, it transpires. The ensemble sing and danceagainst the backdrop of the fledgling opera house.A fabric trailsweeps up to join a star overhead.Made of the beaten tin for which Zaidi isrenowned, the piece combines inverted andrighted Islamic stars, inset with pink triangularimages of Devil Mass from Trinidad carnival.

Casual passers-by seem unsure, irritated, eventroubled, by this gift of energy from Moti Roti.Builders working on site approach attracted by themusic. As couples pass, women slow down,craning their necks momentarily in curiosity beforetheir men steer them past. In the most subtle ofways territories and power dynamics areemerging. A dancer offers the audience foldedpaper scraps, the line reforms and evaporates backinto the box office. The audience is left in deafeningstillness, examining translations of the songs:

Beenloow FalallmvBeenloow Wafalloow

A liar is a magician, A liar is a magicianBe aware of him, keep away of him

and believe him not.

Overhead bells chime as we are guided around theopera hoarding to view a floor piece made ofcoloured sands. The image which greets usappears incomplete: a work in progress. Theauthor, a young man kneelingat its edge, is stillbusy with his sand. The audience, standing, towerabove him until invited by the guide to enter theprocess by making a mark in the sand, a taskperformed with varying degrees of enthusiasm.The shifting of power within our visit to this pieceis both subtle and alarming. There is a certainviolence involved in disrupting the albeitpedestrian images of the kneeling artist while heobserves. There is a literal transfer of the location

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"The Seed The Root', 1995: Rangoli works at Spitalfields Market. Photo: Ali Zaidi.

of the audience as they bend to make their markand contribute as makers. There is a possibility thatthe mark of the audience will somehow add to theimage. Ownership might be transferred.

By the time we have finished, it looks decidedlysorry. Scraping sand from under our nails we areon our way, leaving the sandman to remake hiswork in time for the next tour, and the next tourand the next tour again. Perhaps the touristsempathise with the apparent futility of his task.A witch's task perhaps.

Out of the market and down the road, we pass thesite of Zaidi's slide installation which is renderedinvisible in bright sunlight. It emerges only afterdark, when exquisite colour images roll for fiveminutes. They share the seductive quality ofadvertising but show a different reality, ananathema of the ad man's world. Here powerdynamics are implied and exchanged, but gently,and with ambiguity. How many of the audiencewill stay or return at dusk remains to be seen. Westop outside Shaz Bitan's wedding accessoriesshop.

The passage from the gentrified recreationalambience of Spitalfields into the narrow streets ofa new commercial arena adds focus to notions ofidentity and space. Who will be conspicuous here,and who will disappear? Conspicuous in onearena, converting to invisible in another. Placedin the window integral to the existing display isa resin cast, in which various male and female dollsand other 'gendered' toys found in the area aretrapped. Our map places us at 'Casting aStereotype'. Again, this piece alone is notexceptional of itself, but its location and methodof display makes it remarkable. The audience haveno experience of these particular commodities, orthe paper garlands and canopies of Shaz Bitan'sshop, although resin-petrified toys are familiar,encouraging the viewers to look boldly into theshop window. This has an empowering effect,enabling the tourists to ask questions of the tourguide, perhaps more appropriately directed to theshopkeeper. In a subtle way, curiosity has beenvalidated by the tour. Seeking installations, whichmight be understood in a particular frame ofreference, the audience are able to go beyond theboundaries of such frameworks and enter a part

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of Britain which fear or reserve otherwise rendersinaccessible.

The audience are warming up, both toward eachother and to the process. We reach site numberfour where the need for booking becomes obvious.Restauranteur Shams and his staff reveal a truth.The party is seated and a variety of fragrant spiceddishes arrive. We taste them, we taste lota chingri,cakorul bhaji, toor bhaji and more, all Bangladeshidishes, all delicious, all absent from the housemenu and, as such, from British consciousness.The street sign reads Indian Cuisine, the menu listsitems and the walls carry buxom 'dusky maiden'paintings which their largely British clientelerecognise as 'Indian'. Shams summarises "that isall for the white man". The first owners of theserestaurants were Indians, who introduced andfamiliarised a British market with a small range ofIndian dishes, and the Bangladeshis who followedhave continued to cater, in the same way, for thesame market. But today is special, we are special,Shams and his family have cooked as if at home,

sharing their culture. Encouraged, empoweredeven, by the Moti Roti company?

A5 colour postcards depicting Shams, his wifeand mother displaying a selection of vegetables arepresented to us as we eat. The vegetables andrecipes which include them are identified on thereverse of the card. The images bring real womento the table. The audience, now delighted, havelost their native reserve, and, with bellies tickledfrom the inside, are deep in conversation. Sitenumber four is one of the most successful workson the tour, simultaneously subtle, provocativeand lucid, operating on many levels. The audiencedebates aspects of invisibility, assimilation,authenticity and diversity and are encouragingShams to extend the house menu to reflect his ownhouse as our guide moves us on. Walking alongBrick Lane we cannot fail to notice the very samevegetables so recently brought to our attention inthe restaurant, art making sense of life, enlargingthe field of knowledge, altering experience.

Dawdling, languid and less easily lead, we are on

'The Seed The Root', 1995: Jugal Bandi. Photo: Eiffel Wong.

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"The Seed The Root', 1995: interior of the Clifton Restaurant. Photo: Ali Zaidi.

the way to Heneage Street, guided to gaze into aplayground, fenced and marked with pitches andgoals. A football pitch, of course, is of standarddesign and proportion, but this differs from thepitch in the market because the people who kickand run here are predominantly Bangladeshi andare invisible at Spitalfields. Posters and graffitiappear in diverse languages and scripts. A freepublic place, which functions clearly as a centralsocial space. Information is exchanged here,information which refers to a world much biggerthan the world of play, of Britain or of Europe. Ourpresence as a group of outsiders is noticed by thepeople of the playground, whose familiarity withthe place gives them unspoken territorial rights.

The tourists are now more inclined to shelterunder the authoritative information delivered bythe guide. He shows a wall where, high above thespray-paint tide-line, are engaging pictures wholllyconversant with the spray aesthetic. Painted byTrinidadian artist Ouditt, the boards carry imageswhich divide space like the page of a comic book.We see: ox, man, phallus, boat, dog, pod, Euro-flag, cow, jumbie, compass and lines of navigation.Ouditt also refers to the world beyond this patch,implying goods and services removed withoutconsent. His pictures communicate beyond text,whilst also including it, achieving parity with thelocal wallscape. The absence of any attack by thepeople of the playground on the artwork which

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has been imposed upon their space, importedwithout consent, implies something. Respect,perhaps, or disinterest, or submission. Conversely,the art literate audience who form the guidedinvasion of the space appear to find this work alittle confusing. It sits less easily than the hitherto'soft' statements of the tour.

We depart for a cuddle, another shop window inwhich a Faiz Ahmed Faiz quotation and mirror-expanded photographic portrait sit under fabricdraperies. At first glance the fabric is just anothersari, but closer examination reveals it to be printedand batiked with portraits of persons involved inthe production. A visual credit sheet that exceedsthe limitations of scripts. Hand gestures translateFaiz's words into the language of kathak dance.Male hands link to border the piece. Shishasranged across the floor guide the eye to the text:"Speak, the lips are free and the tongue is yourtool." Speech is free amongst the audience as wewalk on to Spitalfields Health Centre for the finalstreet work. A fabulous beaten tin-work treeoccupies the full drop of a two-storey window.Cameos cut in the tin reveal photographic portraitsof local children. Flanking the tree are full sizeblack and white images of two mothers holdingbabes in arms, accompanied by blessings dedicatedto their offspring.

The final destination is also the first art-designatedspace we are to visit: Toynbee Hall theatre, a spacesliced by more beaten tin-work. A line on the floordemarks the viewers from the viewed. Theaudience squats under textile canopies whichextend from ceiling to floor. A tabla player sits inthe half-light. The pulse from his hands is pickedup by the feet of a dancer. The pair exchange rolesas they call and respond to each others rhythms.The gulf in skill and experience between these twomen is great, enabling the audience to witness arare act of communication and trust in which bothparticipants give the best of themselves andengender the best in each other.

8Downstairs in the cafe area, the lights have beengiven beaten tin crowns which reflect light arounda skeletal boat structure. Floating on thisframework are images discarded by the highturnover media industry. Zaidi's crowns andOuditt's boat are minded by multi-denominationalangels. The effect leaves us wide-eyed.

Transformation of the space is completed by thearrival of audiences who have shared an hour'scompany in the street.

'The Seed The Root' carries its audience alonga trail of essences, snatches of exposure to the alienand familiar. Commentary on identity and poweris not overt; rather, it is implied by stimulus andtempered by diverse territories. It is a rare publicartwork, referring to local aesthetics, employinglocal resources and consumed on the street in fasttasty morsels. Partaking of every part of the feastis not necessary, individual snacks can be chewedoff casually and taste good regardless ofexpectation. Even the full meal is not over heavy.If the event excludes anything it excludes rarefiedself-important spaces, avoiding the monoculturaland narrow framework of the artspace. Many ofthe installed works would read as eclectic,postmodern even, inside a gallery, but would riskrelegation to the periphery. On the street a millionviewers might see these fragments in a milliondifferent ways. Furthermore, a visitor might seethe works a million times and each time the publicamongst whom it resides would render eachviewing unique. Live aspects provided byperformers and tour guides push the experienceinto living-memory for incoming audiences.

For local audiences the timeline extends toparticipation and observation of gradual changesin the environment, followed by a restoration ofthe status quo. Were they tickled in the bellyperhaps, like any local anywhere watching thetourists pass through?

"The Seed The Root' operates in a mannernamed (amongst others) by Helio Oiticica:"[C]reation is a dialogue and the object has nostatus outside its 'relational' role."* An axiomevident across cultures, years and hemispheres.

"The Seed The Root', presented by Moti Roti, was a seriesof installations and performances by Ali Zaidi and SteveOuditt, in collaboration with other artists and performers,that took place along Brick Lane and in SpitalfieldsMarket, London, from 9-28 October, 1995. Theperformances and guided tours were on the 13th and 15thOctober.

*Guy Brett, 'Earth and Museum — Local and Global?',Third Text 6, 1989, p 93.

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