The Long Waited, Weighted Gathering

Co-commissioned between Manchester Jewish Museum and Manchester International Festival, Prouvost’s immersive installation centres around a new film which will play in 15 minute cycles on a screen suspended from the ceiling of the museum’s breath-taking grade II* historic synagogue. Prouvost’s new film is inspired by the museum’s history as a former Spanish and Portuguese synagogue built in 1874 and its oral histories from the women who used to sit up in the Ladies’ Galleries of Cheetham Hill and Didsbury – where tradition and religion dictated that is where they were to sit during the services.

Bird imagery will feature heavily in Prouvost’s new film, symbolic of the unique bird’s eye perspective the women would have had in the synagogue, sat high above the men – where they could observe the service, chatter, share gossip and connect with each other. The theme of playful and alternative perspectives is something that can be seen throughout Prouvost’s work.

Local Sephardi women from the community whose family members were amongst some of the synagogue’s former congregants have been filmed as part of Prouvost’s film. Working with film-maker Ciarán Wood, she has captured their reactions to the stories unearthed in the museum’s oral history collection, creating a new narrative exploring and sharing the women’s own personal experiences of sitting in that space.

Accompanying Prouvost’s installation will be brand new artworks created by the museum’s resident Women’s Textile Group. Set up in January 2019, the group is made up of women from a diverse range of ages, religions and cultural backgrounds, representative of the diversity of Cheetham Hill where the museum is located. These fortnightly zoom workshop sessions have been led by local textiles artist Jo Scorah, who is a Sephardi woman herself. As an artist specialising in sculptural textiles, her practice has explored her own ancestry stemming from Aleppo in Syria. Her intention has been to build bridges through art and education.

She has helped the group to collectively create materials that celebrates the local communities and faiths who engage with their culture, past and present, as well as providing an insight into religious customs and tradition. Many of the women have worked together on previous projects and have explored their differences and similarities through the embroidery group. Together they will create a piece that explores the identities of the women and their hopes for the future. This end result – a dress – will be worn by a Mannequin which will accompany Prouvost’s installation.

Prouvost has also commissioned the group to design and create their own fabric and textile panels which will decorate the screen on which her brand new film will be projected. As Jo Scorah explains: “When MJM commissioned Laure Provost for the Manchester International Festival she shared an interest in what the Women’s Textile Group was doing and asked us to embroider four panels as a border for her projection. Her interest in imagery using birds and fruit such as lemons, clementines and pomegranates as well as the memories of some of the first Sephardic families to frequent the synagogue has led us to be inspired by their wonderful stories. We hope to do her justice!”