Liturgy 1 @ X Church

Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, was once an inland port, its flat otherworldliness reminiscent of Holland, its endless nineteenth century terraced streets totally British. The X-Church is a Victorian deconsecrated former centre for worship, now a place for heavy metal bands to practice, for boxers to train, and for experimental arts events like this, the first version of Liturgy 1. Performed by artist Lee Hassall, and developed from Steve Hanson’s 2021 book A Shaken Bible, the work uses the building’s historical context and architecture to build a kind of ritual focused on the present day, brought to life to the accompaniment of an edgy soundtrack comprising of words and bursts of music or sheer noise. A white paper strip runs along the floor of what was the nave.

Hassall positions himself behind a work-bench, periodically smearing his face with liquid clay, sticking over it a thin sheet of paper and carving out with his fingers a pair of holes to see through. He walks slowly to the white strip and places the clay-covered paper and his plastic gloves in separate positions, alongside other, more mysterious, wooden objects. He repeats these smearings, maskings and offerings as the soundtrack echoes on, losing itself somewhere above in the height of the old wooden roof. Sometimes he does a circuit, gently swinging on the end of his arm (instead of incense) a potato stuck through with bird-feathers. One or two witnesses wander around, watching.

The event has deliberately not been publicised. It just happens because it can. Somehow, because of the flatness of the landscape, and the endlessness of the Saturday afternoon traffic, Liturgy 1 seems to collect a local energy connecting this out-of-the-way, in-between location with something bigger, more national, and quite disturbing. I look forward to seeing the work’s next iteration.