Burning the Clocks

Image: Brighton UK 21st December 2017. Thousands take part in the annual Burning the Clocks procession through the streets of Brighton to celebrate the winter solstice. Photo: Simon Dack.

A midwinter festival in Brighton – comprising a lantern parade followed by the burning of the lanterns and fireworks on the beach.

Burning the Clocks is in some ways a typical Community Arts project, involving the creative engagement of local communities in a collective celebration. However it is of particular interest because it disrupts the familiar mantras of the founding fathers and mothers of the UK Community Arts movement.

‘Start from where people are at’ we told ourselves and each other as we endeavoured to engage diverse communities in activities across the spectrum of artistic practice. If you are creating a performance – it should reflect or explore the lives of the participants ; a poster or mural should explore issues which impact upon its creators. The theory was that if the work was approached with passion and commitment, and if self-identified ‘professional’ Community Artists provided sufficient guidance and skills the resulting work of art would bring creative satisfaction and might even effect change.

A large lantern in the shape of a person with a broad brimmed hat and a beak instead of a nose. It is processing down the street alongside other lanterns.

Photo: John White.

A large illuminated structure in the shape of a clock, and another shaped like a branching cnadlestick. They are situated on a beach, at night time.

Photo: KaleidoShoots.

The clock structure is in flames on the beach, at night. There are two candle like structures to either side.

When the winter parade has wound its way to the beach, people pass their handmade paper and willow lanterns – filled symbolically with their hopes and dreams – into a blazing bonfire and prepare for the spectacular fire show and firework display. Photo: KaleidoShoots.

Burning the Clocks was not where people were ‘at’. Most people neither want or need extra things to do at Christmas, taking time out to make a cumbersome and at times sticky willow and paper lantern; parade it through cold streets down to a bleak sea and stand shivering on the pebbles to watch it burn is on nobody’s festive agenda.

And yet this is what people in our community have been doing in increasing numbers and with ever increasing degrees of creative complexity for over a decade.

Burning the Clocks was dreamt up by the two leaders of Same Sky Community Arts Project in a small office on a quiet October afternoon in 1994 . We had decided that it would be a ‘good thing’ to do something that would bring people together in the middle of winter that had nothing to do with Baby Jesus or Shopping. Something that would engage the community and, impress the Council (funding was always somewhere in the back of our minds ) and perhaps disrupt the seasonal narrative sufficiently to allow some time for remembering and reflection.

The Solstice date chose itself. Even though we recognised the problem of persuading people to undertake something completely outside any normal routine 4 days before Christmas Day.

A lantern in the shape of a lego spaceman is processed along a street at night, with a spanner shaped lantern to his left and a spaceship lantern behind.

A smiling young woman and a child, with other people in the background, processing along a street at night. They are carrying star shaped lanterns with smiley faces.

Burning the Clocks was created by Same Sky in 1994 as a way for the whole community to enjoy the festive season, regardless of faith or creed. Each year a new theme, related to the concept of time, is incorporated into the event to bring new and exciting elements. Photo: KaleidoShoots.

Burning the Clocks was Chris Bailey’s idea. Our team of artists would help people, in their usual settings to make clock lanterns. A lantern could commemorate or celebrate an event from the past year… its ceremonial burning would be a way to bid farewell to the past and make space for the future.

There is a long journey between an idea and its realisation, but good ideas are snowballs. One call to a Woodcraft Group Leader gave further leads… community groups were offered free artist time to get them started. The artists we employed directly were invited to work with the groups but also to create their own, large centrepiece lanterns. Permissions for a town centre parade and beach bonfire were sought and granted. Crucially the Brighton Corn Exchange, a vast shed of a building was secured as an indoor meeting point on the night itself. In later years large public workshops were held and lantern kits were made available to individual families via a network of retail outlets.

Chris and I agreed that we would deliver Burning the Clocks for three years. At the end of that time if it was thriving we would have created a tradition, if not we would let it quietly fade.

Chris will have his own memories and narrative but for me there were two outstanding moments which confirmed my belief that we had indeed begun a tradition.

A man with a beard and glasses carrying a star shaped lantern with the words Stanley Road Store on it. Other people are in the background carrying lanterns.

Participants make their own lanterns, representing hopes and dreams, at workshops. Photo: unknown contributor.

In year two: standing on the beach at the start of a chain of artists and volunteers who were passing the lanterns I encountered a woman with a young son who was crying. Looking down at the boy and handing over the lantern she invited him to ‘ say goodbye to Joe’. I have no idea whether Joe was a stillborn child or a family pet – from the level of emotion I suspect the former – but significantly this woman was using Burning the Clocks for a profound and personal celebration of remembrance. This was the first – in later years lanterns began to appear with names and messages , carefully silhouetted in the candle flame. A funeral director offered to sponsor -tipping it dangerously in a particular direction; but fortunately there is always a balance of winter revellers and enthusiastic children in Santa hats to keep it on an even keel.

Secondly, in year three or four: we received a phone call from an academic from one of our universities. She had set her anthropology students the task of tracing the origins of Burning the Clocks and called because they had found nothing prior to the year before last. As I explained that it had been thought up in an office a few miles away she became increasingly infuriated, and in the end, to placate her I found myself muttering about Wassailing and Green Man festivities in English Villages and Viking burial celebrations.

I realised once again how many universal collective nerves the event touches, from bringing light into the darkest days of mid-winter, to fires which purge the past and bring the warmth of spring… and new life. The parade takes us to the sea – to the edge of our land and perhaps, for a moment, ourselves.

And now Chris and I are in our mid-seventies, I sit on the bus on my way to the town centre every year and listen to people in neighbouring seats explaining the history of Burning the Clocks to one another… but the event costs money. Each year is on a knife edge. I would like to think that if it dies out someone will revive it in the future and an academic will call and ask if anyone knows the history.

Two men stand alongside a large lantern in the shape of ship, with the name Empire Windrush on it, and photographs of people and lists of names on its side.

A night time street scheme showing men carrying a large lantern in the shape of a ship with two funnels, with a photograph of three Caribbean men in suits on the site. The ship has the names Chris Eubank, John Agard, Colin Grant, Vanessa Crawford and Omar Lye-Fook on it.

A large lantern in the shape of a ship at night. It has the name Empire Windrush and a large anchor at the front, also carrying the name Empire Windrush. It is balanced on poles and carried by a group of women.

The Empire Windrush lanterns. Photos, 1 and 2 unknown, 3 KaleidoShoots.

I was previously involved with a couple of organisations.

The debts:
Lantern making skills were developed in this country by the northern theatre company Welfare State International. Employing dozens of artists and creative practitioners and touring the country for many years they attracted a generation of creative talent. They did not primarily identify themselves as Community Artists but rather as artists who took work into communities. But many of the people who worked with them settled into communities and generated their own companies and projects. Same Sky is one of these.

The organisational structure of Burning the Clocks is modelled on Notting Hill Carnival. Carnival Artists will come up with an overall theme or design concept and the learning will cascade through the community – enabling people to take part in workshops, coming together for annual street parades and celebrations.

A large lantern structure in the shape of a person wearing an animal mask. It is being carried through the street at night.

Photo: John White.

Burning the Clocks

Categories