One Lost Stone
Thomas Kampe – Artistic Director of One Lost Stone
One Lost Stone was initially designed as an immersive performance event. This was to be a guided tour around the Sephardi Novo Cemetery in Mile End, London, inviting audiences into a participatory journey inspired by Sephardi legacies in England.
The changing pandemic circumstances created an obstacle for me as project director. How could I envisage an alternative journey through history as an appropriate form of artistic and educational expression? Then I realised that we had amassed enough resources to create a mosaic web-resource that journeys across timelines and cultures. This seemed eminently appropriate: had I not just learnt that many Sephardim around the Mediterranean had been excellent navigators who could respond with speed, skill and intelligence?
Join our multimedia journey
One Lost Stone has grown into an exciting and complex multimedia resource. As a digital travel guide, it offers written texts, podcasts, collages, videos, soundtracks and paintings by Sephardi artist Anne Sassoon. It synthesises an entangled world of inter-cultural discovery and documentation.
Our research reveals Sephardi immigration to England as a vital part in the building and consolidating of the modern British Empire and its colonial heritage. How can we respond to this complex history through artistic means today, in the twenty-first century?
The poetically layered material produced for this project gives voice to the disenfranchised, to the poor and to women. It has been a privilege to illustrate our texts with Anne Sassoon’s artwork. These beautifully raw and starkly atmospheric paintings are balanced with collaged graphics and videos that give each page a distinct identity. There is also a separate gallery page dedicated to Anne Sassoon’s paintings.
The website offers an interwoven resource for contemplation in evocative, thought-provoking and often entertaining ways. It is advised to perhaps visit just one or a few pages at a time before turning or returning to another ‘chapter’. Each page has a central focus of a summary text accompanied by a recorded spoken version; there are also satellite recordings and contextual pages offering more information.
I hope that you find the experience of navigating through One Lost Stone a touching monument to a nearly forgotten history. Enjoy your adventures across the site!
ONE LOST STONE is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and produced by Pascal Theatre Company.
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SELECTED RESEARCH AND RESOURCES LIST
Thanks to everyone involved in the making of ONE LOST STONE, the Creative Corporealities Research Group (CCRG) of Bath Spa University and to Jules Deering at Queen Mary University of London.
