AND THE WINNER IS...

May 2005

So it didn’t quite work out as I hoped it would when I wrote I Love easyJet. That said, In You We Trust has been going for more than six years. Many dozens of artists have stayed in the tower and much work has been left behind. The only trouble is, a lot of it is crap. The crapness of the art being left behind became apparent pretty early on in the venture. I tried to do something about it, initially by writing the following text that was then printed on a poster and is now framed and hanging on the kitchen wall of the tower.

It’s All Fuckin’ Shite

Not one of the artists that completed a residency at the Curfew Tower before September 2001 created a work worthy of the accolade ‘A Work Of Art’.

It had been our intention to invite the citizens of Cushendall on 31 October 2001 (Halloween) to the tower to inspect, admire, enjoy and judge the efforts of the artists who had been working in their midst.

We will not insult the people of Cushendall by presenting them with the weak, unfocused, sterile, compromised and ultimately unchallenging tat that has been left behind.To rectify this situation and save the future embarrassment of the 30 artists in question, we have decided on the following course of action.

You, plus anybody else you feel will benefit from the experience, plus the 30 artists are invited to gather at the tower at 8pm on 31 October 2001, when you will be able to take part in the removal and burning of all supposed artworks in the incinerator that will be stationed in the tower’s back yard.

A selection of brushes and pots of paint will be available to obliterate any of the works that have been applied directly on to the tower’s internal walls.

We realise that some might find our judgement harsh. It is. But in these demanding times it is the only course of action worth taking. To show willing on our part and that our fundamental belief in the creative potential of all the residents to date remains unshaken, we make the following proposition.

Each and every one of the 30 artists are invited back to complete a second residency so that they can grasp the opportunity given to them to respond to the immediate space, the surrounding locality and the people of Cushendall to create a work that reflects their undeniable worth and true potential.

And on Halloween night 2002, we can all return to the tower to admire or take spiritual succour from the fresh works of art on display.

Bill Drummond

Once the poster was printed and hung in the tower my attitude softened to ‘Who the fuck am I to say what’s good enough?’

We still had the bonfire on Halloween night. I invited all the artists who had done residencies to date to come along and burn their work, if they felt so motivated. A bunch of them turned up, we had a great night of it. Their work was burnt and promises were made to come back and try harder.

Writer Duncan Mclaren, whose book Personal Delivery I loved, was asked to write a text about the tower and what had been going on there. That text and some of the diary entries that artists in residence had left behind plus pieces that I had written were put together as a book. It is called Stay Here And Make Art.

The book was never meant to be a commercial exercise. It was published primarily to be sent out to all the Fine Art MA courses in the land to make the cream-of-the-crop art students aware of the tower and the opportunities there. Six copies got sent out to the heads of each of these courses. Fuck knows what effect this had on things. Somebody who knows about these things told me that the books probably never went anywhere between making it to the head of department’s in-tray and finally landing in the college recycling bins. Mind you, we have never been short of applicants to come and stay at the tower.

Last year (2004) John Hirst, who has just become the fourth trustee of In You We Trust, and I spent a few days over in the tower. We dumped all what we thought of as the garbage work done so far which has not been incinerated, then framed (if applicable) all the work that survived our purge. Obviously my attitude had hardened again. I’m not very consistent.

Then John Hirst curated a show of the work. He had all the stuff displayed in various shops along the High Street of Cushendall to coincide with the village festival. This festival happens in the second or third week of August each year. After the festival we rehung the work back in the tower, but instead of putting it back where the artists had left it in the building we concentrated on covering the walls of the kitchen. The plan is that the internal walls of the tower will be covered bit by bit starting with the kitchen, creeping upwards over the years like lichen over a boulder.

During this year’s festival (6–14 August 2005) we will be doing for first time what I originally proposed in I Love easyJet, back in 1998. All the work by the artists in residence – that is, all the work that hasn’t been burnt or binned – will be on display in the tower.

On 10 August the tower will be opened and all the locals will be entitled to inspect the work and cast their vote for what they think is the best piece. We have already got ourselves a proper ballot box and everything. And then, when the votes have been counted, the winning artist will be awarded a small bronze cast of the tower. Not literally a cast of the tower, but a cast of a clay model of the tower.

As I mentioned in I Love easyJet the tower was originally built by local landowner and freethinker, Francis Turnly. John Hirst has suggested that this award should be called the Turnly Prize. I don’t like irony or that sort of play on words that subeditors like to come up with for headlines. So there is part of me that is unsure about us naming it the Turnly Prize, especially given my own history with certain high-profile art prizes. That said, and I know it sounds a bit patronising, calling it the Turnly Prize would go down well with the locals and the local media.

For the time being, this is where it stands. I’m sure that in 12 months from now I’ll be wanting to steer this whole thing in a different direction. Let things unfold at their own pace. That’s what I keep trying to say to myself.