The Lemon Collective’s ‘Underground Playground’

Williamson Tunnels, Smithdown Lane
26th January 2013

Review and interview by jjSchaer

The other weekend, the labyrinthine Williamson Tunnels in Edge Hill were transformed into an art exhibition crossed with a concert. It was centred on the theme of advertising and it’s ever intrusive presence in our daily lives.

Walking in I was immediately greeted with weird flashing projections of cuts from horror movies spliced with advertisements. The tunnels tour was modified and filled with a variety of eclectic artworks. Hearts encased in boxes. Large humanoids created from recycled plastic hanged from the ceilings. A sheep’s head was adorned with a mob of flies mounting a flag. A startling large painted portrait. Finally some more projections of a more vivid nature. One of the artists Debrea Lewis, and also one of the founding Lemons, guided the tour and explained the individual artworks, their makers and their themes. Walking down the stairs after the tunnel tour I met with the sight of a bohemian gentleman spinning poi and breathing fire outside the large windows of the main room.

Throughout the night a variety of acts performed on the main stage. There was tranquil guitar playing, comedy that bordered on experimental theatre and the event came to a close with a banging set from the Liverpool rap group ‘Fire Beneath The Sea’.

Part way through the night the Lemon Head made his appearance – a suit-clad figure with an overly large lemon for a head. Walking through the crowd in a spot light, he was handed lemons and proceeded to cut them in two and rub them onto his dome. Then toddling back off the way he came…

I met with two of the founding members of the Lemon Collective - Christopher Moore and Dennis Outten - to discuss the event and the Lemon Head:

What are the aims of the collective itself? I was looking online and it mentioned promoting cultural events and art throughout Liverpool?
Dennis: Just changing the way the sort of structure is as well really, isn’t it? Because there are so many basic formats for exhibitions and concerts where you know exactly what you’re getting. But at the same time: is that good? It’s like white wall galleries. It’s just boring. (Laughs)
Chris: Also it opens art up to different people as well.
Dennis: Well we wanna make them as converged as possible really. We want it all to mix and blend together as well. But make them interactive so people aren’t just like ‘This is art. This is a band. This is a comedy.’ Do you know what I mean? We want to have it so it’s like a big fusion.
Chris: Really, really inclusive stuff, like. We want to be able to talk to them.
Dennis: Yeah, it weren’t like a normal gallery exhibition were, you know, you get told this, you know it’s on the wall, it says ‘this work is about so and so’. We actually had the artist taking part.

Would you say that’s the main impetus, to get the people more involved in the artworks rather than just wandering around?
Chris: Yeah.
Dennis: Yeah. But we wanna make it easier for people. Having done a degree in art and Chris in writing, it’s like it’s not just a job you walk into straight after uni; a creative, paid form of work.

Is it something your intending to keep localised in Liverpool or are you going to be taking it throughout the country?
Dennis: For now we’re staying locally.
Chris: For now.
Dennis: But eventually there’ll be a Lemon in every city. (Laughs)

So there are four members to the group? There is you two, Debrea and the Lemon Head? Is that right?
Chris: Yeah. But we’ve got an open door policy though. If people want to get involved they can get involved.
Dennis: Yeah, definitely, like.
Chris: All the artists were lemons for the night.
Dennis: Yeah. It’s a hands on sort of idea isn’t it?

I was gonna say do you want to say something about the Lemon Head and, erm, his creation and the choice of the lemons?
Chris: He’s our leader. He’s the boss man. I think he’s like a capitalist. Look at him. He’s like a capitalist. It’s just a bit tongue in cheek isn’t it?
Dennis: He’s a changeable object though as well. He’s like a motif; you can just change him up for different things. So for the ‘Lemon Labs’ in mid-March he’s a scientist. He represents the top of the tree. The top of the pyramid. What is the far end of the spectrum? He represents it. hat’s why there’s the Lemon Head as well. You know, he puts a different guise on.

Does he ever speak?
Dennis: No, he speaks through others.

So the Tunnels, it’s called the Underground Playground, it’s based around advertisements. How did you choose that theme?
Dennis: It’s sort of prominent really, isn’t it?
Both: I get annoyed by adverts…
Chris: Yeah, they annoy me every day.
Dennis: Every time you’re watching YouTube when they come on it’s like giving your computer the finger, like.
Chris: YouTube is one of the most annoying because they repeat and there’s not many adverts on YouTube.
Dennis: Someone’s paying for them somewhere and it’s not the usership of YouTube. YouTube used to be no adverts and it was massive.

So the artworks themselves they all came from the students?
Chris: Students and ex-students, yeah.
Dennis: And some guy called Rich. He e-mailed us about two hours beforehand and asked if he could get in the show and we said “yeah, come down before six”. He came down and set his work up by himself. It was good work as well. It was manufacturing and consumerism. It was like loads of cars and he had like covered them in aluminium.

Where the musical acts and the comedy acts students as well?
Chris: No. Like ‘Fire Beneath The Sea’, there are so many of them.
Dennis: hey’re like the UB40 of Liverpool. (Laughs)
Chris: They’re brilliant.
Dennis: They’re all either on the dole or making a wage. But they’re dead down to earth ain’t they? But they’re got their heads in the clouds as well.
Chris: Because it was our first event, like, we were a bit sketchy to start off with. We were just trying to sort stuff out.
Dennis: But at the same time they knew what was going on which was good. Imagine explaining to all the artists what the Lemon Head is and what the spectacles are going to be in the show. That was hard. We had to write a creative overview to send to everyone and it was just intense.

Do you wanna say something about the Lemon Head and the lemon procession in terms of…?
(Both Laugh)
Dennis: Erm, well I suppose there were a few connotations. There’s that like religious symbolism of like worship and this entity, or deity or whatever, which was the Lemon Head. Then there’s like the whole giving of the object and how we are all consumers giving the lemon back to it. Separating the lemons.
Chris: It was a bit surreal really.
Dennis: It was abstract.
Chris: I don’t think most people knew what to think.

So what other events have you got coming up? You mentioned you had different themes? Have you got a date for the next one?
Chris: We’re thinking around the start of March.
Dennis: But definitely there’s going to be one or two events in March. We’ve got Threshold Festival on the 8th of March.
Chris: We’ve got a stage on that.
Dennis: Yeah, we’ve got a stage on the Friday. But the first and second of March is the weekend. At the end of February we were thinking, but it’s the beer festival so we’ll get involved with that. The first one will be based around the circus.

So it will be quite different to the last event?
Both: Yeah.

Website: thelemoncollective.com

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