A 75ft-high temple will be torched in Derry in March in a bid to bring new meaning to the bonfires so closely connected to the Troubles and its legacy in the region.
Up to 100 Derry natives, from both sides of the city’s political divide, are currently involved in the radical new arts project Temple by David Best, which is set to bring a slice of the American Burning Man festival to the North of Ireland.
Best, who is responsible for creating the extraordinary temples that are ritually sent up in flames for the annual festival in the Nevada Desert, has been working with the London-based Artichoke creative events organisation to bring their Derry inspiration to life.
Artichoke Director Helen Marriage, who coordinated their Lumiere City of Culture offering in Derry in 2013, claims she is delighted to be back in the city.
“We first talked about doing this project when we were doing Lumiere, and I thought maybe it could be a part of that programme, but it was so huge and complicated that we decided to do it as a standalone legacy project which was a great reason to come back to the city,” she explains.
Marriage was in America while planning Lumiere in late 2011, where the idea for the Derry temple project struck her.
“I was thinking about traditions that exist in the community in Derry and the bonfire burning thing struck me,” she explained.
“I was thinking about how different the values were around the bonfires in the North of Ireland and the bonfires at the Burning Man festival and how there is a completely different set of values, where the atmosphere is different and the intention is different,” she added.
“I wondered whether it was possible to invite somebody to create that work and preserve the Burning Man values in a different context, so I talked to David about coming over and he was really interested to do it.
“His main concern when building the Burning Man temples is the sort of social and spiritual wellbeing and peace that people achieve inside his work, as well as the cathartic moment of when its burnt and the hopes for the future that have been embedded in the structure disappear into the night sky. So he was very interested in translating that into a Derry context.”
Best has been in Derry working on the construction of the temple for the past month, with the help of 20 Californians drafted in to support the project and 100 local people working as volunteers or carpenters and engineers on the build.
Artist David Best with Artichoke Director Helen Marriage (Photo by Lorcan Doherty)In March the 75ft structure will be ready to open to the public - available for locals to use as a place to visit, meditate or simply contemplate within for a week before it is burnt down.
“Reaction to the project has been really amazing in Derry,” Marriage admits.
“You would think people would be more quizzical about it than they have been, certainly among the community, but the welcome has been really extraordinary and we are getting tons of people volunteering to help and are running apprenticeships and back to work projects for locals as a part of the project also.”
She added: “There is a definite buzz in the city around it already, which we are sure will continue as the temple starts to take shape. People think it’s an exciting project to be a part of and at 75 feet it certainly won’t be missed.
“But David is very serious about his work also, not just about building it and the opportunities for people to work on it, but also people who visit the temple.
“They may do so to change their life or think about things that they don’t normally get to contemplate, or to dump stuff that is holding them back in some way.
“So he is very serious about the pain that people carry around with them and using this as a way to deal with that.”
The intended location of the temple, which Marriage describes as a “sacred” and a “cathartic” space, has yet to be revealed, but it will be “intricately designed and created in laser cut wood”, she confirms.
The project, which has been funded by a range of public and private sources, including a grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, will open on Saturday, March 14 and remain accessible to the public until Friday, March 20, before it will be ceremonially burnt down on Saturday, March 21.
