• SPILL FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE

• ON MEMORY

• (2021)

Live • International •  Artist-led • Ipswich

Originally planned for 2020, SPILL Festival On Memory was postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. When it finally took place in October 2021, it was the tenth and final SPILL Festival under Robert’s tenure as Artistic Director and curator.

Over five days, On Memory brought together 100 events across Ipswich, with more than half presented free of charge and Pay What You Choose adopted for the remainder. The programme included large-scale works and public projects including Ray Lee’s Chorus, Architects of Air’s Albesila Luminarium and Luke Jerram’s Gaia, alongside the return of the Pyre Parade, new SPILL Commissions, projects for children and families, and the SPILL Open. For this tenth edition, Robert also invited an artist from each of the previous nine SPILL Festivals to contribute a work, creating a programme that looked back across the festival’s history while continuing its commitment to new and experimental work.

Two of the edition’s central projects had been developed over much longer periods. Mary Catherine Newcomb’s Eden had begun the previous year, when hundreds of squash plants were grown and trained into saintly human forms using bespoke moulds. With the growing timeline too demanding to recreate in 2021, The Eden Reader extended the project into a publication, bringing together contributions on sculpture, food, ecology, folk belief, science and related subjects, alongside an exhibition of selected squash creatures preserved in jars. The Ipswich Biscuit, meanwhile, was launched at the festival following a two-year public process involving biscuit heritage experts, education packs, a public competition, community panels to shortlist the entries, a gala tasting event and a public vote. The winning recipe was by a 15-year-old entrant, based on a recipe from their grandmother. Together, these two projects reflected SPILL’s long-form year-round approach to making work with and for the people of Ipswich.

Memory also shaped a number of other personal and reflective projects. Raimund, Farewell, a celebration of the life and work of Raimund Hoghe, was planned for the festival but ultimately cancelled due to illness, before being presented at the Barbican in April 2022. Its inclusion in the On Memory programme was significant: Hoghe had performed at the inaugural SPILL Festival in 2007, and the project brought SPILL’s fifteen-year history into direct conversation with the life and work of a seminal collaborator. Long-term SPILL Writer in Residence Diana Damian Martin, Robert and incoming Artistic Director Robin Deacon also contributed texts to the free festival brochure.

After 15 years, ten festivals and a substantial body of work rooted in Ipswich, On Memory marked the end of Robert’s time at the helm of SPILL. It brought together many of the strands that had defined the festival under his direction - international artists alongside homegrown projects, large-scale public work alongside intimate encounters, and a continuing commitment to experimentation, participation and the life of the town itself.