The
History of Luna Nera
the Colosseum Project
The Colosseum Theatre
was built in the 19th century as a theatre and music hall. It was the
first silent film cinema in London, but closed in the 1960's. [1] It has
been boarded up since then, its glorious Victorian interior crumbling
to dust. In the 1990s part of it was used as a rave club. The artists
gained permission to use the Old Colosseum as studio and exhibition space
for film and video, circus performance, painting, photography, sculpture,
installation art and much more...
[images of the
Old Colosseum here]
Colosseum
I (October 1997) ... Projections filled the cavernous
space with light and colour, as trapeze artists hung from the skeletal
remains of the domed ceiling... Sculptures lurked in mysterious places,
paintings, installations and photographs hung on cracked walls and mirrors
...
Cabaret featured the Tiger Lillies, Evil Moisture, Marisa Carnesky of the Dragon Ladies Grotesque Burlesque Revue, Starkstrom, Natasha Mayran, Bingo, This Way Up, Licky, Moses Man In The Air, Bryony, Phil Dirtbox and The Sleazy Berlin Cabaret.
Cinema by
the Colosseum Project and Exploding
Cinema, featuring work by Charo Corrales, Duncan Reekie, Michelle
Carlile, Emma Hetherington, Jean-Marc Teychenne, Arthur Lager, Nam Guy
Kim, Mark Downie, Derek Hart, Simon Hyde, Mark Hamilton, George Butler
and Pravin Permaul.
Gallery by Nicoela Green and Jairo
Zaldua, Caia Matheson, Jason Royce, Liliana Klimova, Jean-Marc Teychenne,
Valentina Floris, Gillian McIver, Stephanie Crouail, Sandrine Albert,
Chris Singer, Jeff Brown, Charo Corrales.
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Colosseum II
(November - December 1997) featured gallery work by Nicola Green and
Jairo Zaldua, Caia Matheson, Sandrine Albert, Michael Park and Stephanie
Mas, Gillian McIver, Valentina Floris, Chris Singer, Charo Corrales, Disco
Kid TeeVee, Jo Vox, Evil Moisture, Claudine Schaeffer-Legrand, Tracy Brown.
In early 1998, Hackney Council forced through plans to pull the building down and convert the site into a shopping centre, car park and multiplex cinema. Sadly, almost all of the old theatres in this area - which boasted the highest concentration of theatres in London, many of them gorgeous - have been torn down or boarded up. However the shopping mall was never built and to this day the building stands empty.[1]
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Colosseum
III: Because of the eviction from the Colosseum, the artist
moved their show for the Whitechapel Open into a former ironworks also
in Dalston. Ours was a subversive and sometimes shocking contribution
to the Whitechapel Gallery's programme. The participating artists were
Valentina Floris, Gillian McIver, Chris Singer, Sandrine Albert, Caia
Matheson, Michael Park, Tim Mould, mark video.
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Colosseum IV: from 15 - 24 October 1998 The Colosseum Project created an event in a disused bank in Shoreditch, London. A derelict, empty area, it is nevertheless only moments away from the vast shining temples of Mammon in the City of London, a City that is steadily encroaching on the artists1 strongholds of Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Hackney. The art hanging on the walls of offices and banks in the City of London is corporate art: smooth, passionless, un-challenging. In a fitting reversal of uses we transformed this bank space into a dark, underground, exciting gallery of the most passionate and avant-garde art that is being produced today.
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Colosseum IV: The last Colosseum Project show was in 1999, at the House of Detention in London's Clerkenwell district. This 17th century underground prison had been closed since the end of the 19th century but in its day housed many famous felons, highwayment etc. Each artist was given a prison cell to exhibit installation, durational performance, video, painting etc. by Gillian McIver, Valentina Floris, Sandrine Albert, Julian Ronnefeldt, Chris Singer, Mark Video, Michael Park, Juana Serrat, David Remondo, Stelio Stylianou. Evening performances by Natasha Mayran, Marissa Carnesky, Adrian Palka and others.
At the beginning of 2000 the Colosseum Project artists relaunched themselves as Luna Nera, continuing the project of site-responsive/site-specific art in disused urban spaces.
[1]Dalston theatre in Roseberry Place, holding 1,030, was opened in 1886 and used for a circus until 1890 as the North London Colosseum or with similar names. A new building, designed by Wylson & Long for 3,516 and originally to be called Dalston Palace of Varieties, was opened in 1898 (Footnote 39) and had become Dalston Picture theatre by 1912.
[2] By late 2007, a full ten years later, the old theatre has ben pulled down and a shopping/tube complex underway. The site was squatted intermittently amid attempts to save the building which unfortunately was too far decayed to be salvaged.
(source http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22705)