Dominoes

Poperinge, 2pm
Bailleul, 8pm

Dominoes takes as its starting point the simplest of ideas… a line of dominoes. Thousands of breezeblocks are used to create a moving sculpture which runs across the city, unfolding over the course of the day.

On streets, through parks, buildings and even on water, occasionally disappearing and then resurfacing, sometimes pausing for sculptural performances, the domino line threads its way through historical and everyday parts of the city, linking its diverse communities in a symbolic as well as physical chain of cause and effect.

Creating a celebration across the whole city, Dominoes transforms the rhythm of the city for one special day. Hundreds of volunteers and audience members gather together to make this exceptional and unique event.

Dominoes takes a simple concept and uses it to create an alternative vision of the city, counterpointing, complementing and playing with the architecture, and for a brief moment reclaiming the city streets for the inhabitants and the public.

Dominoes has the power to bring communities together through participation and engagement. Large numbers of people have the opportunity to become involved in the project and to be responsible for a major art event in their city. Participation in Dominoes doesn’t require particular skills or significant time investment; everyone has the opportunity to take part and to be at the centre of this memorable event.

“It was exciting and madness at the same time, making it a very memorable event, also it was incredible the amount of people who were involved and as one of the volunteers I want to thank everyone for a rather unique Sunday.”

Dominoes is a site-specific installation, a moving sculpture with possible performative elements, which can be recreated and adapted for different cities and contexts.

Winner of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch CREATE09 Art Award, Dominoes was originally created in London on 26 July 2009, linking the five ‘host boroughs’ for the 2012 Olympics. The 8000 blocks made an eleven kilometre journey, which included an opening event, a block ‘picnic’ and a performance finale: a structure of thousands of blocks brought to life by a group of performers. A film of the event was produced.

At the other end of the scale a shorter run of Dominoes opened Diese festival in France with the festival Entre Cour et Jardins in 2010, and opened Mladi Levi Festival in Ljubljana in 2011.