London-based artist Richard Grayson works primarily with moving image yet he is equally recognised for his contributions to writing and curation. Grayson’s ongoing concerns were brought to the fore in the 13th Sydney Biennale (The World May Be) Fantastic, his major curatorial project in 2002, which he stated focused on artists using “subjective belief systems, modellings, fakes and experiments as a means to make works.” His video-based installment The Golden Space City of God continues to explore community expressions of hope and aspiration which are echoed in the broader activities of Te Tuhi’s community groups.
Grayson will transform Te Tuhi’s largest gallery into a community theatre complete with curtains, carpet and no-frills plastic seating. The Golden Space City of God presents a twenty-six piece choir performing a libretto written by the artist and composed by Leo Chadburn which recounts passages from the book of Revelation. They give detailed predictions of events leading up to the end of the world as narrated from a website associated with The Family, a community developed from the 1960s cult Children of God. Throughout the piece the poetic imagery within the biblical text is frequently substituted with contemporary interpretations and fantastical images such as aliens and UFOs, generating a strange amalgam of apocalyptic scripture and science fiction.
The Golden Space City of God was filmed at Say Si in San Antonio, Texas and has been commissioned and produced by Artpace, San Antonio and Matt’s Gallery, London.