LOOP POOL 2005 for The Year of the Sea

Yellow House LooPPooL is a major International Project leading each year to LooPPooL 2008 as part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture Celebrations.

Gdansk (Poland) is a major European Port, similar to Liverpool, with a vibrant and important history.

What if you could meet someone from Gdansk, see their historic city, The Solidarity Shipyards, see how people live, ask them questions about themselves, their homes, culture and history and not even leave Liverpool.

What if they in Gdansk could see you, talk to you, and ask questions - what is Liverpool like, what does the Cavern look like, football, music, history, you and your family.

Imagine it.

Then imagine if people from the two cities could talk and chat and those stories could become a performance piece, a piece of theatre - but listen - a fantastic piece of theatre - in two places, two cities at the same time, with two groups of people who previously did not know each other, nor had any interest in theatre. No - not possible. But it is.

Yellow House made it happen. Between 15th and 28th August a live Internet connection was made between Liverpool and Gdansk. People in Liverpool were able to see Gdansk, see and talk to the people of that city, exploring ideas, cultural differences and similarities or just ask questions. At the same time people in Gdansk could see us in Liverpool and see our City and pursue the same questions.

In Gdansk Yellow House presented a display of our previous projects with Poland starting from 1997 when we were commissioned to device a performance for 1000 Anniversary of the City and from then on continually asked to co-ordinate more and more projects.

The young people had an opportunity to explore their cities and processes that modelled their spirits through theatre workshops, art workshops including painting and sculpture but as well were exploring their changing cities using digital cameras and sharing the images with the other country.

We created clay sculptures representing the idea of Solidarity and presented them at the concluding exhibition.

Younger generation had a chance to meet working class people who influenced the history of their hometowns through strikes and resistance towards unjust systems but as well take parts in celebrations of their greatness: in Liverpool – Matthew Street Festival, in Gdansk – 25th Anniversary of Solidarity.

Young people led by Jerzy Borowczak (initial strike leader) walked through the Gdansk Shipyard following the historic path of the strike and later on discussing with Bogdan Lis the issues relating to negotiations between strike committee and Polish Government.

Yellow House took part in International Conference “Solidarity for the Future” organised by Gdansk University including speakers from Ex-Soviet States and discussing the issues relating to deeper understanding of events of 1980 and its influence on change of the face of Europe, Laying the Foundation Stone for International Solidarity Centre signed by heads of European states including John Prescott and Screening of Films by Polish Directors commissioned by Andrzej Wajda.

We are currently developing long term project with Gdansk leading up to 2010 – 30th Anniversary of Solidarity and its impact on changes in Europe.

At present we are preparing for the visit of the leader of 80’ Solidarity - President Lech Walesa together with Lord Alton and Citizenship Department at John Moores University.