Freee at Zoo

[italics re-posted from freee.org.uk]














Following an elaborate series of scripted ceremonies, Freee and a small group of invited ‘witnesses’ took to the streets of Cambridge to rename a selection of the city’s streets along a route from the Court to Kings College.

Existing place names such as King Street, Jesus Street and New Street are renamed by the group through secular ‘christening’ speech acts temporarily occupying the streets of Cambridge with the names, anecdotes and legacy of those 18th century activists who were inspired by the French Revolution to engage in radical political movements in the UK.

The script divided the participants into ‘chalk-holders’ and ‘witnesses’, the former responsible for writing the new names of the places on a blackboard held near to the existing place name; the latter responsible for acknowledging the renaming and proclaiming their assent to the new name in a spoken exchange amounting to a secular christening.

Having studied with Dave Beech from FREEE for a little while, I hardly dare to say anything about this, because I know I'd get rinsed! I suppose its quite neat that they can't actually rename the streets, they have to just make the gesture, because obviously once a street is named after something the meaning of the name is forgotten. Naming a street 'Jesus Street' could probably undermine christianity as much as promoting it.

The weird red hats give it some sort of currency(?) as a performance, I don't know if they have significance but they must have had balls of steel to wander round wearing them!

Its appropriating Christianity in the loose western (rather than religious) sense in that it uses 'christening' as a cultural reference point to explain what they're doing. You wonder why they couldn't have just said 'naming' though? I suppose christening suggests a link to something greater (union with God?) which maybe in this case is something else.

The post goes on to say that through the presence of 'witnesses' to the event, a 'temporary counterpublic' was created, which seems to be the most important thing. I get the feeling that its a really clever link between participatory art and radical politics..