TREBUS PROJECTS
We are all the offspring of our histories.
The Trebus Project is an archive of life stories, letters, drawings, films and music produced over a five-year period by more than a thousand people with dementia.
“It began as a scruffy note book full of hand written clues and scribbled drawings. After two years almost every cupboard and wall surface in my flat was stuffed with scraps of paper. This was material that didn’t seem to fit anywhere… the afterthoughts coming at the end of more purposeful sessions… It took me a while to appreciate that its off hand, throwaway casualness was what made it genuinely revealing. David Clegg 2005
Between 2000 and 2004 Trebus was chiefly a project of words, so more than 9 out of 10 sessions led to nothing physical and many sessions led to nothing at all. Although I never sought to control the outcome of a session I did provide momentum and actively listened and searched for ways to move forward by following hunches and chasing the more unusual moments. Whilst any ongoing creative process might occasionally generate stand alone artifacts I was always careful not to fall into the trap of interpreting meaning in single sessions but to allow the steady buildup of material over time to tell its own stories.
Each new work began as a blank slate from which there was no subsequent attempt to glamorise the illness by cajoling flawed, sentimental or childlike outcomes or avoiding the participants' own ugly or upsetting questions. As a result some work is genuinely uncomfortable, dark and disturbing.
The experience of dementia as told by those living with the condition is as varied as the people themselves. It is sometimes bleak, occasionally funny and always unpredictable. The words of some participants have accumulated into extraordinary maze like biographies filled with personal details from lives as varied as a debutante in the last days of the Raj, a code-breaker at Bletchley Park, a burglar, a cowboy and a soldier. Some life stories have condensed to no more than a few hundred looped and repeated words.
“There’s a connection with some contemporary minimalist music, working with a number of small phrases with each repetition creating a slightly different tune or association.” (Mark Brown ABC Tales)
At these latter stages working with the artist and musician Tommaso Del Signore has helped in the aim to maintain a connection with people who seem to have gone beyond thinking in words.
The Trebus Project is named in homage to Edmund Trebus, heroic accumulator of the insignificant.
The Trebus Project was conceived and directed by David Clegg.
ANCIENT MYSTERIES
Stories from the Trebus Project compiled by David Clegg
Edited by Mark Brown and David Clegg
“I have a rock in the head now… my thoughts are just round the outside”. Sid
Ancient Mysteries contains 28 life stories, assembled over five years from the isolated and fragmented memories of people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in nursing homes and locked hospital wards across the country. The stories range from first hand accounts of important historical events such as the London Blitz and the Suez crisis to personal tales of counterfeit money, murder, stolen biscuits and getting drunk with Princess Margaret. Several stories communicate the struggle of living with dementia in episodes containing the contributor’s last spoken words.
Ancient Mysteries is available from March 2007 for £15 + £2.00 postage and packing directly from the Trebus Project website. www.trebusprojects.org
information@trebusprojects.org
Published with the assistance of the Arts Council of England in an edition of 300 numbered copies.
Songs and Stories From The Centre
Limited to 500 numbered copies, each vinyl album comes with a CD featuring additional recordings and a supplementary catalogue of visual material.
Available to order from 20th July 2005 @ £12.50 + £2.50 p&p
Press for Songs and Stories from the Centre.
“Compelling… The Trebus Project throws down a gauntlet to the world of contemporary art, so often obsessed by youth sensationalism and celebrity.” Harry Eyres Financial Times Sept 10 2006
“A startling collision of Samuel Beckett, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Tom Waits.” Mark Gould Society Guardian April 26 2006,
“Quite brilliant for reasons almost impossible to explain.” Trunk Records Review 2006
“An original and very touching homage to the forgotten lives of people with dementia.” Alzheimer’s Disease International
The Trebus Project featured on Resonance F.M and the Today Programme during 2006.
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