Acclaimed artists Greenaway & Greenaway are one of the stellar line-up of creatives working hard to create Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019’s epic opening event Welcome to the Forest.
Here Greenaway & Greenaway give us a sneak peek at what residents can expect from the biggest party Waltham Forest has ever seen…
Who are Greenaway & Greenaway (G&G)?
We are brothers Jude and Jolyon. We work collaboratively through a hybrid of production, graphics and audio, crafting audio/visual work and, most notably, dynamic films for spaces.
Our best projects are the ones where we get the chance to really explore the boundaries of our craft. The film we are making for Welcome to the Forest really pushes this on so many levels – a lot of energy and brainpower has gone into developing the ideas. It’s like making the jigsaw parts before we know what it looks like. Now we just need to put it together.
2019 will be the 10th anniversary of our creative partnership, and it's great for us to be working on a project that has ignited such a sense of local connection as we reach this milestone. I, (Jude) currently live in Walthamstow. Jolyon was born in Whipps Cross University Hospital in Leytonstone. Our dad's family grew up a stone's throw away in Woodford Green. And of course our uncle, Peter Greenaway, also went to Waltham Forest Technical College.
What can people expect from your part in Welcome to the Forest?
G&G is creating a unique film that is a collaboration between us and award-winning musician Talvin Singh, who is composing the original score. Our film, separately titled Into the Forest, will be part documentary, part music video, part installation, part video mapping.
Into the Forest will take people on a journey through time, through Waltham Forest and into the future. It will be a high-energy, audio-visual, hyperlocal, site-specific film that tells the story of the borough through the eyes of the diverse communities who call it home.
Have you been working with any local residents?
The project has been a massive detective endeavour to dig deep into the borough. The film features; 1,000 local video portraits, 12 rappers/poets, 10 local businesses, 4 dancers, and core G&G team who are also local residents.
Our filming team have literally walked the high streets across the borough to meet our 1,000 video portraits. We've been to Leyton Orient Football Club, Whipps Cross University Hospital, Baptist churches, mosques and Hindu temples to name a few locations. We've cast a net really wide to find people and places to work specifically with.
Working with our spoken word artists has been one of the most rewarding elements so far, and to quote Katie Greenall (local E17 poet and theatre producer): “It’s in the gaps you find the stories” and we really hope it’s this sentiment that comes through Into the Forest.
We've also met a select group of students from Leyton Sixth Form College who visited our studio to see how we work and received a creative brief to produce some of the content themselves.
In three words, what should people expect from Welcome to the Forest?
Dynamic local experience.