Landmark
(In development for 2026/2027)
Do you like to people watch?
Revisiting the idea of city landmarks, their function and ability to reflect the lives of the people who live nearby, a temporary monument is built in public spaces around the world and occupied by local households.
Part experimental performance, part experimental architecture, and part live cinema, an alternative landmark is literally built in front of a pre-existing one: a four-storey-scaffolding structure populated with the lives of local people. A social sculpture about the messiness and multiplicities of daily life, audiences watch their neighbours’ private spaces elevated to the scale of the monumental.
This scaffolding will be occupied by sixteen households, across various levels, in replicated dioramas of their living spaces. It's as if we are walking home, gazing up at the windows of strangers. Simply people watching.
Sometimes these people tell us stories about who they are at home or in public, sometimes we just witness them in a sequence of tableaux: they cook, eat, unwind, exercise, talk with, embrace or take care of their loved ones. With live cameras constructing filmic portraits to screens above, and a live band orchestrating this outdoor spectacle, the work dares to comprehend how grief, joy, ennui, disappointment and the voyeuristic all exist side-by-side.
Craig and his collaborators are currently entering the second phase of project development, after a period of Research and Development in Glasgow from April — September 2024. During this next period of development, a prototype will be built outdoors and the team will play with different compositions, temporalities and invitations for local households to interact with the monument. One idea is that local people are invited to actually live in this structure for one day.
Craig actively welcomes international partnerships or further discussion with promoters about this project. We are looking to premiere the piece in 2026/27 and touring versions will be remade with people local to each city.
Credits
Concept and Direction Craig McCorquodale
Producers FERAL (Kathryn Boyle + Jill Smith)
Scenography Rachel O’Neill
Composition / Sound Design Greg Sinclair
Cinematography Kirstin McMahon
Video design Tim Reid and Dan Brown
Performers Minnie, Dan, Pat, Jasmine, Wesun, David, Rowan, Bart, Georgia, Ali and Ally.
Production Managers Craig Fleming + Suzie Normand
Technician Craig McNeill
Supported by Tramway, the Jerwood Arts New Work Fund, Creative Scotland Open Fund for Individuals and National Theatre of Scotland.
