ROOT ’98 presented a new commission by Hull based artist Andy Hazell in collaboration with Carolyn Mendelsohn. Lumina was a huge twin screen projection on the side of the P&O Norstar ferry. The images were drawn from the artists’ research into the passage of people through Hull’s docks in the late nineteenth century: ‘The Wilson Line brought in one thousand people a day at the end of the nineteenth century; where did those people go to? […] it’s almost as if that history didn’t exist, and it’s really influenced how Hull is…’ (Mendelsohn in Hazell 2013). To understand Hull one must look at its geographic position: flanked by the Humber estuary to the south and the River Hull to the East, these waterways have variously provided protection, trading routes, and encouraged migration and population growth. Lumina drew on Hull’s defining characteristic to explore areas of its history that were at risk of being forgotten. The event was timed meticulously with the Norstar ferry from Zeebrugge pulling into the dock just after dusk. The film opened up a neglected aspect of the city’s history: projected on to the side of the boat were archive photographs and films of passengers who had crossed that same stretch of sea, arriving in the same city, but under such different circumstances a century before. The event was a social occasion, with food prepared for the audience on arrival, live accordion music and information boards about the historical passage through Hull. Liberated from the archives, these images resonated with, and were enhanced by, their location at King George’s Dock. The cultural heritage of Hull, as managed through its museums and public projects, often emphasises the city’s links with the sea, but focusing on working lives can overlook the plight of the itinerant traveller. Lumina presented an alternative to the official public history – which has traditionally ‘told us who to commemorate and what we should remember’ – to make an artwork that drew on the lives of men and women too often disregarded by the ‘bastions of formal memory’ (Atkinson 2007: 17). 

Emily Wilczek

References

Hazell, A. (2013), ‘Lumina’. http://www.andyhazell.co.uk/portfolio/lumina/. Accessed 10 August 2016.

Atkinson, D. (2007), ‘Rethinking memory’, Walking Past: Soundwalks in Hull, Hull: Resound Community Partnership, pp17-23.