Play me, I’m yours
Like many people I’m afraid to say I don’t know the names of the people who live opposite my house. Why is it that when I go to the laundrette I see the same people each week, yet no one talks to one another? I suppose one of the intentions for this project was to try and reconnect communities. For the pianos to potentially act a as place for strangers to talk and connect with one another. Listening to the radio programme made by NPR about this project it seems to have worked. (See link to right.)
The pianos have also levered many hidden musicians from out of the woodwork. It has become apparent that there are hundreds of pianists out there who don’t have access to a piano to play. This project is about providing access to musical instruments, promoting creativity and creating music in public. Its also about claiming ownership of public space. Although Birmingham city council financially supported this project we were banned (for the usual health and safety reasons) from placing any piano in the public domain - for which they felt they held responsibility for. As a result each piano is publically accessible yet is on privatly owned land. The negotiations and discussions about ‘public’ space and its use, has become part of the arts project.
After 3 weeks from the time of installation, many communities have taken long term ownership of their piano, others have had to be removed as they were too badly damaged by the British winter weather. 5 pianos have moved site and will appear at the Vale community festival in June.
So what next? I’m hoping ‘Play me, I’m Yours’ might work in other cities around the world. I can imagine the piano project working in NYC, Sydney, - for that matter any city in the developed western world. But how might the public respond in Bangkok, Delhi or Gaza? I’m hoping to take street pianos to places in the world where they might have the largest and most positive impact.
“Where words fail, music speaks” Hans Christian Anderson
Artist information
Luke Jerram is a UK based artist. His other projects can be read about here www.lukejerram.com
www.fiercetv.co.uk
Comments about the project….
“We came to school and it was all broke, so we took all the things off and we’re taking ‘em into class and everyone’s decorating it,” says Basnick. “And then we started to paint all this and stuck everything on so it looks all nice.” Pupil from a school who had a piano. – that broke
I heard about this story on NPR today and looked this up, and I have to say - Luke, you are an inspiration. This is true art, in that it impacts people and engages their sense of creativity. This is alot better than plopping modern sculpture in parks all over town because it does inspire interaction. I loved hearing how the schoolchildren took to decorating the piano they came across. There is more than one way to express creativity with a piano, I guess (I’m an avid player). An ingenious idea and full credit to you, Luke, for an inspired thought brought to fruition. Jon from Austin, TX I would love to do this in Thailand. If only I could find enough pianos. I think it’s the nicest unusual new story for a long time. It’s good to see people caring about wanting people to play… very often when a pianist passes a pinao shop he sees them calling him… but you don’t always feel so welcome to sit and play. I like the piano shop in the film ‘Betty Blue’ The little boy prodigy that came in to practice because his parents hadn’t the money for a piano. We know about the pianists there are, and who they are. But we will never know who the great pianists were that never got to touch a piano in there lives. I’m sure there are some here in Thailand like this. I would so like to do this here… can anyone help?Posted by kim Plygeaw from Thailand I spent an hour and a half outside with the piano on most days. I’d say we
averaged at around 4 people per hour for the main part of the day (slightly
less in the mornings but usually making up numbers in the afternoon
especially school children going home with their parents or in groups. It
seemed to be a real hit and although a lot of people made scepictical
comments about the chances of the piano lasting the course, I can’t say
that I heard of any one abusing the piano during it’s stay. All in all I’d
say it was quite a hit with the locals.Michael. Erdington library What a wonderful idea!Though perhaps not under my window, please….Asha NPR Transcript March 20th 2008.The streets of Birmingham, England, are sounding a more joyful note these days. Residents awoke recently to find pianos spray-painted with the words ‘Play me I’m yours’ scattered across the city. The public invitation to tickle the ivories is the work of an art collective whose organizers say they want to create a sense of unity and wonder in a place where both are in short supply. Luke Jerram, the artist who conceptualized the project, previously surprised residents with an orchestra suspended in hot-air balloons over Birmingham. On this particular morning, street musician Gordan Thomas pounds on a battered, paint-spattered upright piano, just outside the city’s rag market. He is accompanied by people on guitar and homemade drum. As the trio plays, hijab-wearing women walking arm in arm and young mothers with babies bundled up against the cold slow to take in the spectacle. Men working the nearby stalls, and others clearly not working at all, loiter in groups and listen and smile. At any given moment, 15 such scenes play out across the city. Kevin Isaacs, of Birmingham’s Fierce art collective, commissioned the piano project. ‘We’ve had kids of 14, 15 years of age from all communities making their own types of music,’ Isaacs says. ‘We’ve had people of 70, 80 years old playing old music-hall-type stuff - which is absolutely brilliant, that’s exactly what it’s about.’One of the pianos was installed at Frankey Community High School, and librarian Sue Baker says she is thrilled with the number of people who sit down and play.’It’s getting people talking who you wouldn’t normally talk to. And the people that you can’t imagine, play,’ Baker says.Outside the Allens Croft Primary School, fifth graders Simran Sahota, Robert Corcoran, Dailan Korta and Bethany Basnick crowd around one of the pianos. Since its arrival, it has been painted a dazzling pink and gray, and all the black keys have been covered in sequins, pom-poms, buttons and even pencil shavings.’We came to school and it was all broke, so we took all the things off and we’re taking ‘em into class and everyone’s decorating it,’ says Basnick. ‘And then we started to paint all this and stuck everything on so it looks all nice.’Corcoran notes that boys and girls have taken to the piano. ‘I think it’s fun. … In case we can’t play football or anything, we can come down here and play the piano,’ he says.Back at the rag market, Jason Konciw strikes some keys and shakes his head at the sound of the piano, which has suffered from sitting outside during a cold and wet month.’Oh, it’s a shame. I don’t like to see pianos like this, neglected,’ says Konciw, 37.Like so many others in Birmingham, he is unemployed. The city’s jobless rate is at least double the national average, and in some neighborhoods, one in three men has never had a job.’I'd love to work in a piano shop. … I’d do anything to work in a piano shop,’ Konciw says.A few feet away, 72-year-old Katie Killen sits bundled up in a beach chair, surrounded by brightly colored roses and chrysanthemums at a flower stall where she’s worked for 47 years. She says the music ‘cheers the place up. …We need cheering up.’
