Minervala Market- the pre-war trading outpost for makers in the city, and a refuge for those fleeing the persecution of the final days. Created by artists, it quickly began to be joined by art workers from the dissolved arts organisations across the country. Due to the number of displaced peoples, in a number of months the market developed into a much larger settlement which became known simply as "Minervala": Land of the Artists.
Named after Minerva, the goddess of the Artists. The city had four sectors for each of the attributes she bestowed upon those who revered her: Wisdom, Craft, war and trade.
After the bombs fell, no word was heard from the artists in the underground city of Minervala...
Many years later, after the red lightning and the smoke cleared from the abyss, the artists left the hills and began to return home to the city of makers. Within the ruins of the city they began to rebuild Minervala.
Minervala Market, 2016 is a large scale installation made up of eight market stalls, a kitchen, bar, stage area and dining hall. Artists were invited to take over stalls in the market place and trade materials from their studios with other artists. The art work was a proposition for new ways of sourcing materials, new avenues of trade and communication between artists and new ways of existing as artists. The Project hosted 55 artists and arts organisations as stall holders in four weeks.
As with each of our projects, we commission a score to be composed and recorded. For Minervala Market we collaborated with sound designer Rowan Piancastelli to create the soundscapes of Minervala Market. The city at Dawn, the walls, the narrow streets, temples, bridges, walkways, halls and towers.