Inside RAFTS: Live
A selection of lyrics, reflections and behind-the-scenes imagery from RAFTS: Live, the concert component of Rory Pilgrim Turner Prize-nominated project.
One year ago, 40 performers gathered at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, London, for RAFTS: Live – a concert years in the making. For some, this was the first time they met their collaborators in person. In 2019, artist Rory Pilgrim had started working with groups of people from Barking and Dagenham and Boise, Idaho, on a project called RAFTS, one of the multi-year Radio Ballads commissions led by Serpentine’s Civic Projects team. RAFTS became a nine-song oratorio which explores experiences of work, mental health, home, recovery, and support, all set against the backdrop of the environmental crisis and the dismantlement of the care sector.
After one year, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Collaboration shifted online, with participants’ experiences of both isolation and connection across distance influencing the project. A film version of RAFTS was presented in the 2022 Radio Ballads exhibition at Serpentine, while the live concept at the heart of it was finally able to come to life in November 2022. Here, we bring together lyrics and recordings from the live performance alongside behind-the-scenes imagery and contributors’ reflections on the emotional impact of their story being witnessed on stage.
Rory Pilgrim has been nominated for this year’s Turner Prize for RAFTS, and how it demonstrates ways in which artists and communities can meaningfully connect. RAFTS features in the Turner Prize exhibition at Towner Eastbourne, which you can see until 14 April 2024.
When we were finally able to do a live performance at Cadogan Hall, in many ways RAFTS became its truest form, with the human connection between people sharing and the audience holding one another. In times where we are all too often ‘sharing’, I feel that the power to also share without a screen is underestimated. I will be forever grateful for all the people who worked on RAFTS, and for those who so beautifully, courageously and generously brought a part of themselves.
— Rory Pilgrim, artist
This was a chance to immerse an audience in the original music, poetry, writing, animation, and dance by people with whom we have collaborated for years. We wanted people to know how listening to each other’s stories can create connections that are personally transformative, but also pathways towards collective change. The performance is a reminder of how vital creativity is within life-affirming practices. After the performance, so many people described connecting to the work on a deep emotional level.
— Elizabeth Graham, Associate Curator, Civic
Rafts of My Mind
Song by Catherina Rowland, arranged by Rory Pilgrim
Keep me afloat
Even if it’s just a piece of a boat
Something to sing
Someone to take me under their wing
Fly like a bird
Even if you only do it with words
Trying to bring others to what I can sing
I can’t stop feeling this way, I want to hear what the other person has to say
Rafts of my mind
One of a kind
Rafts of my mind
I’m trying to find
Thinking of you
Thinking of me
Thats how we’ll be free
On the rafts of our minds
Floating along
To the beat of someone else’s song
Float to the beat
I can feel myself tapping my feet
Slowly I find
What I’m looking for and looking behind
I must unwind
To find the rafts of my mind
As I’m listening
To the water flowing
On my journey
Nurturing
The resources and their spaces
Support from different faces
Dreaming of new horizons from their places
Rafts of my mind
One of a kind
Rafts of my mind
I’m trying to find
Thinking of you
Thinking of me
That’s how we’ll be free
On the rafts of my mind
Some days, we just have to create our own sunshine. These words are like a mantra to me. I regularly remind myself to be mindful and practise gratitude daily. Grateful, for all that I am able to do.
— Emily Khoury, collaborator
I love precision. Everything in order. I don’t mean in the dictatorial sense. But if we had that same care and careful precision for our planet, think how beautiful it would be. Cos everything’s a fine balance in nature. If we was all in a better frame of mind, we’d make a better planet.
— Eddie Paggett, collaborator
We never remain in the same place. We’re only just passing through, sharing with each other, sharing how we make it through each day and giving tips on how to build a raft. It’s something that you have to build yourself and construct a system of support, and when we create our own narrative, that’s when the true magic can happen and miracles are formed.
— Carina Murray, collaborator
Beach There
Song and arrangement by Rory Pilgrim
If there was a beach there
Reveal the solace from a clue
To wish there was reef there
To catch beyond the grief of what we loose
Hmm, hmm
So put my favourite beat there
Touch me with a beat of that song
To finally feel free there
Somewhere where these feelings can be long
So tell me
What feels wrong
Don’t tell me to be strong
A vision that goes long
So come on over reach there
Come on over reach there
Are we gonna reach there?
Are we gonna reach there?
I wanna reach there
I wanna reef there
How we gonna reach there?
What we gonna leave there?
RAFTS partners and collaborators
Project partners are Green Shoes Arts, Barking and Dagenham Youth Dance, Project Well Being (Interfaith Sanctuary, Boise, Idaho) and London Contemporary Orchestra. RAFTS: Live brings together over forty collaborators from Pilgrim’s Radio Ballads’ commission.
All project collaborators: Eddie Paggett, Hugh Prior, Dee Pessoa, Carina Murray, Liam O Connell, Mark Jones, Emily Butterfly Khoury, Catherina Rowland, Vicki Busfield, Sam Miller, Nikki Watson, Kevin Walton, Melissa Bell, Marcos Ramos, Geoffrey McCauley, Janet Kauffman, Nicki Vogel, Jeffrey Doroto, Jacob Heiter, Tina Logsdon, Tina Cartwright, Scott Cramer, Sarah Kemper Cook, Georgina Alexiou, Red Fox, Anabel Berko, Breanna Amoako, Calum Johnstone, Chisom Nzekwe, Eugenia Rapta, Heavenly-Joy Obeng, Kiera Dymond, Lara Pinto Wlodarczyk, Marly Fadiga, Rome Martin-Whilby, Ruby Harris, Sasha Dilevska, Kayden Fearon, Robyn Haddon, Declan Rowe John, Rob Ames, Saloni Thakkar, Amy Hinds, Jack Sheen, Marged Sion, Paul Perry, Donna Cain, Lorraine Fox, Salom Ranger, LBBD Temporary Housing and Accommodation, Ronald Long, Natasha Humphries, Freya Hicks, Rebecca Burden, Clare Bennett, Alastair Penman, Anna Drysdale, Todd Harris, Rick Leigh, David Jarzen, Dan Lewis, Letty Pilgrim, Kate Marlais, Katie Dove Dixon, Seraphina Simone D’Arby, Sophie Galpin, ASAI, Jonathon Graham, Olga Micińska and Mathild Clerc-Verhoeven, Cody G, Charlie Gregory, Dave and The White House.
RAFTS: Live Production Credits
RAFTS: Live at Cadogan Hall is a project by Rory Pilgrim, created in partnership with Green Shoes Arts, Barking and Dagenham Youth Dance, Project Well Being (Interfaith Sanctuary, Boise, Idaho) and the London Contemporary Orchestra.
Civic Curators: Amal Khalaf, Elizabeth Graham and Layla Gatens
Executive Producer: Holly Shuttleworth
Production Manager: Andy Downie
Narrators: Eddie Paggett, Hugh Prior, Dee Pessoa, Carina Murray, Liam O’Connell, Mark Jones, Emily Butterfly Khoury, Catherina Rowland, Jacob Heiter
Soloists: Declan Rowe John, Kayden Fearon, Robyn Haddon
Dancers: Lara Pinto Wlodarczyk, Ruby Harris, Rome Martin-Whilby
Choir: Marged Siôn, Ben Francis, Rick Leigh, Todd Harris, Dan Lewis, Karoline Gable, Kate Marlais, Levi Heaton, Sophie Galpin, Seraphina D’Arby
Conductor: Jack Sheen
Harp and Piano: Rory Pilgrim
Flute: Clare Bennett
Clarinet: Alastair Penman
Horn: Anna Drysdale
Violin 1: Sophie Mather
Violin 2: Blaize Henry
Viola: Freya Hicks
Cello: Sergio Serra
Drums and percussion: Kai Akinde-Hummel
BSL Interpreters: Sumayya Si-Tayeb, Rachel Rebecca Jones
Production Coordinator: Bea Redweik
AV & Programme Design: Matthew Appleton
Sound Projection: Simon Hendry
Lighting Operation: Phil Jackson
Stage Manager: Cam Mitchell
Production Crew: Imogen Adshead
Production Assistants: Manuela Cochat, Gisou Golshani
Curatorial Assistant: Caterina Avataneo
Green Shoes Arts: Sam Miller
Barking Dagenham Youth Dance: Georgina Alexiou, Sharleen Red Fox Ferrol-Fulgence, Ashanti Fearon-Kerr
Choir Facilitator: Marged Siôn
London Contemporary Orchestra, Producer: Saloni Thakkar
London Contemporary Orchestra, Orchestra Manager: Amy Hinds
Animation Storyboard and Concept: Catherina Rowland
Animation: Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume
Photography: Matthew Ritson, Holly Smith
Videography: Cody G, Lila Rae
RAFTS was commissioned by Serpentine Civic for Radio Ballads, in partnership with New Town Culture, a Cultural Impact Award-winning project, part of London Borough of Culture, a Mayor of London initiative.
