It's time ...

From the 1920s to the 1980s, strange adverts were spotted on billboards and the sides of British buses, which read: ‘Crime, banditry, distress and perplexity will increase until the bishops open Joanna Southcott’s box.’ From 1792, Joanna Southcott, increasingly aware of her divine mission as a prophetess with messianic connections, filled a "Box of Sealed Prophecies" that could only be opened under certain conditions.

When the First World War began in 1914, many believers in Southcott’s prophecies thought that this must be the predicted time of national danger. A number of different groups and people tried to persuade the bishops of the Church of England to open the box. During the 1920s and 1930s, the unopened box remained central to the beliefs and activities of the Millenarian Panacea Society – and for decades they continued to issue their adverts calling on the bishops to open the box.

In 2018 while we may not face a Millenarian catastrophe, although groups continue to exist which believe in that possibility, we do nevertheless, as Greek artist Danae Stratou believes, live in a time of multiple crises in which it is ever so easy to fall into a state of fear-induced paralysis. ‘It’s time to open the Black Boxes!’ is a participatory art project which is a reaction to just such a prospect.

For a two month period prior to the Pollença exhibition, through a blog, social media and conventional local media, an open call was made inviting the local community to participate in the project by submitting the one word that best expresses either what frightens or threatens them the most, or what they believe is in urgent need of protection. In this way the project reveals local concerns, hopes and fears to give voice to and to assist materially as many people as possible to attain a deeper understanding of our collective predicament. The words submitted include: Affection; Balance; Calm; Dagger; Education; Failure; Generosity; Hate; Ignorance; Justice; Laughter; Magic; Nationalism; Ocean; Plastics; Recognition; Sensibility; Time; Uncertainty; Values; War; Xenophobia; and Yellow.

At Eglésia del Convent de Sant Domingo in Pollença, Mallorca, 100 black aluminium boxes are geometrically positioned on the floor equidistant from another, so as to form a rectangular grid. The boxes’ lids are open at an angle. Inside each box a black screen is positioned at a 450 degree angle in relation to the floor. The boxes are surfaced with translucent mirrors, thus creating the illusion that they are filled to the rim with a liquid substance and that the screens within them are submerged in polluted water akin to an oil slick.

Upon entering the exhibition space the viewer is confronted by a mixture of sounds such as beeps, heart beats, explosions and flat-lines. The screens inside the boxes display words and numbers. The words displayed are the 100 considered most representative of those submitted through the open call. Each word appears for a few seconds before being replaced by either a countdown or a count-up (depending on the word). As the numbers race (down toward zero or up to a specially chosen limit), their pace, style and accompanying sounds resemble a ticking bomb. When the countdown, or count-up, reaches its climax, each box emits the sound of either an explosion or a flat-line. These sounds are designed so as to intensify the sensation of tension, crisis, and alarm.

By the opening of these ‘Black Boxes’ there is a symbolic bringing to light of the words from the open call that reflect what threatens us the most, or that which we are desperately eager to preserve. Black boxes are used after disasters to ascertain the causes, but these black boxes equate more closely to Joanna Southcott’s box with its warning of approaching disaster. These Black Boxes seek to open a public dialogue that examines how art in conjunction with new technologies can promote direct, sophisticated and advanced democratic models and practices. A catalogue essay by Stratou’s husband, the economist Yanis Varoufakis, aims to expose ‘the powers-that-be with the power to control our lives (the state, corporations, the media, banks, organised pressure groups etc.)’ and advocates getting inside the network and disrupting the information flow.

The hope is that, in a world in which we see the rise of misanthropy, xenophobia and toxic nationalism, projects such as this can lay the foundations for a new trans-European, reflective, participatory and tolerant community. The challenge is that the technology used by this project can as readily, if not more so, be used by business people intent on using populism to undermine the current checks and balances of economics and politics in order to create unregulated markets for the unscrupulous to exploit.

Curator Inés Muñozcano explores the synergies and dissonances of staging this installation in a hall used to exhibit contemporary art that was originally built in the 17th century as a church of the Dominican Order. As with the project and its wider context, the immediate context for this installation is ambiguous and complex; while noting the democratic principles of St Dominic’s Rule of Life, Muñozcano also notes its involvement in the Spanish Inquisition and, therefore concludes that this former church ‘reflects these internal contradictions, and the frustrated attempts to create a ‘bottom-up’ system eager to assume the principles of dialogue and responsibility.’

Joanna Southcott’s box has not been opened, the black boxes of airplanes are only opened following catastrophe and if found, the one box or container that was opened was that of Pandora, from which all the evils of the world are said to derive. The opening of boxes is not without consequence. This installation, while intending to encourage a degree of democratic participation to address populism, may instead be an indicator that by entertaining populism we have already reopened Pandora’s box.

‘It’s time to open the Black Boxes!’, Museu de Pollença, until 30 September 2018.

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Spiritualized - Broken Heart.

Pollença: Mare de Déu dels Angels & Pollença Museum

The parish church of Mare de Déu dels Angels was founded in 1236, but only four years later it was handed to the Knights Templar, who had been granted swathes of land in northern Mallorca by King Jaime I of Aragon in recognition of the help they gave him during the Conquest of Mallorca in 1229. It was around this church that Pollença began to expand, eventually ending the thirteenth century as one of the main towns on the island.

After the Order of the Knights Templar was dissolved in 1312, all its properties, including this church, were ceded to the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, later known as the Order of Malta, remaining in their hands until 1836. However, the only trace of its original appearance is the base of the bell tower, construction of which began in 1470, although it didn't reach its current height until 1921.

The building as it is today was constructed between 1714 and 1790. It is a basilica floor plan church with vaulted side chapels. Inside you can see several valuable works of art, such as the Baroque altarpiece on the high altar dedicated to Mare de Déu dels Angels - created between 1752 and 1764 by Mallorcan sculptor Joan Pere Obrador - and fourteen large canvases depicting the Stations of the Cross.

The Knights Templar were the first owners of El Calvario, which today hosts one of the most impressive traditions of Mallorca’s Easter Week celebrations. El Calvario not only offers superb views of Pollença, but is also one of the town's most iconic locations thanks to its impressive stairway. It consists of 365 steps, one for each day of the year, and is flanked by cypress trees and fourteen three-metre-high crosses, evoking the ordeal that Jesus Christ suffered on the way to his crucifixion on Mount Golgotha.

On Good Friday the Calvario steps are the setting for the 'Davallament' (Removal from the Cross), one of the most important events of Mallorca's Easter Week celebrations, where a valuable carving of Christ is removed from the cross and solemnly paraded down the steps to the Church of Virgen de los Ángeles (patron saint of Pollença). The entire ritual is performed in complete silence and lit only by the torches carried by members of the different brotherhoods.

The Museum of Pollença is located in the old cloister of the Dominicans and it was built between 1588 and 1616; the Dominican friars were there until 1836.

The name of Pollença is linked to the world of painting from the first years of the XXth century, when artists like Anglada Camarasa, Tito Citadini, arrived from Paris and its international renown attracted other artists like Sobre Joaquim Mir and José de Creeft. The influence of these artists was materialized in the sixties with the creation of the Summer Exhibition of Painting, nowadays International Competition of Plastic Arts that, with 34 editions, has constituted the content of Pollença's Museum.

The Museum of Pollença was officially founded in 1975. In its halls were exhibited the works which won that Exhibition and a group of gothic altarpieces. With time the painting collection has increased and the contents have been enriched with works of archeologic character, a Buddhist mandala and Atilio Boveri's collection.

“It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes!” by Danae Stratou is the current exhibition at the Museum of Pollença in the Iglesia del Convento de Santo Domingo. The show invites the public to contribute a single word — a word that threatens us, or a word that we desperately hope to protect. In the show, we open the ‘Black Boxes,’ revealing our collective vocabulary and bringing to light our collective fears and hopes. The project investigates the space between art, democracy and political action by focusing on how society responds directly — without parliamentary mediation — to issues that affect it.

The convent was built by Dominican Friars between 1558 and 1616 in order to bolster their presence in Pollença, having initially settled in the Oratorio del Roser Vell. The Dominicans occupied the church and the convent until 1833, when the site was disentailed, and a few years later the Spanish government ceded it to Pollença Town Council. Since then it has had many uses, including as a hospice, Guardia Civil barracks, a school and a museum.

The church of the convent has a basilica floor plan and ten side chapels, each adorned with a period altarpiece. The most striking example was created between 1651 and 1662 by Mallorcan sculptor Joan Antoni Oms and is dedicated to the Virgen del Rosario, patron saint of the Dominicans. The painting dates back to the fifteenth century and comes from the Oratorio del Roser Vell, which can also be visited in Pollença.

Next to the church is the pièce de résistance of this building: a Baroque-style cloister which was completed in 1616. Well known for the beauty of its four arched corridors, it has also been the venue for the Pollença Classical Music Festival since 1962. This event, created by the famous British violinist Philip Newman and held annually in July and August, regularly attracts eminent figures such as the soprano Montserrat Caballé, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the Orchestre National de France with Lorin Maazel as conductor.

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Philip Newman - El Cant dels ocells.