WONDHERLAND

WONDHERLAND PRESENT ‘DESIRE LINES’

WondHERland are an all-female, Nottingham-based music collective established in partnership with New Art Exchange.

Over the last year, the WondHERland collective have been in dialogue with internationally renowned artist Shezad Dawood, leading to the creation of Desire Lines, a series of podcasts and sound immersions responding to Shezad’s latest work, HMS Alice Liddell, a major new site responsive art installation situated within St.Pancras Station.

This project is part of Shezad Dawood’s Keyhole Wires commission.

Commissioned by, and in collaboration with HS1 Ltd, owner of St.Pancras International.

ABOUT HMS ALICE LIDDELL

Shezad Dawood’s new work imagines a new travel vessel, reflecting the radical engineering and gothic architecture of the St.Pancras building. This unique and large-scale artwork is situated in The Circle – a modern area of the station located in the junction between the original building and its modern extension. In creating HMS Alice Liddell, Shezad Dawood’s inspirations include Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, with the original manuscript being archived in the neighbouring British Library. Dawood’s work reclaims Alice as a traveller for our times: a proto-science fiction heroine who explored the quantum possibilities of multiple yet connected realities and universes.

ABOUT SHEZAD DAWOOD

Shezad Dawood’s multidisciplinary approach spans across painting, textiles, sculpture, film and digital media, interweaving stories, realities and symbolism to create richly layered artworks. His practice is collaborative, working with multiple audiences and communities to delve into narrative, history and embodiment.

ABOUT THE WONDHERLAND AND SHEZAD DAWOOD COLLABORATION

This creative collaboration connects the commission in London with the vibrant art scene of Nottingham, a key stop on the HS1 route. In response to Shezad Dawood’s key inspirations behind this work, the collective re-imagined Alice In Wonderland, exploring their versions of a modern-day Alice within contemporary Wondherlands.

The group have also worked with NAE producers Parmjit Sagoo and Saziso Phiri, Honey Willliams (visual artist) and Tom Harris (sound artist) in creating this series of podcasts.

Similar to Shezad’s approach, this process has been layered and inter-disciplinary, weaving together creative writing, visual art, movement, breath work, guided visualisations, sound, mapping and conversation. The collective visited St.Pancras station, collating site-specific sound and using their embodied experiences of the station as inspiration for the podcasts.

Through this immersion into the key themes of this sculpture, the collective discovered their own physical and imagined Desire Lines, embodying an Alice that defines her own pathways, follows her innate curiosity and fascination, challenging what society expects of her.

ABOUT DESIRE LINES

Each podcast within the Desire Lines series is a unique world, a transportation into immersive soundscapes, journeying through the collective’s perspectives on Escapism, Femininity and Transformation.

They can be listened to whilst viewing the artwork, while sitting on a train gazing through the window, or during a walk or wander through St.Pancras station.

Listeners are invited to think of Shezad’s artwork and St.Pancras station as a portal – a looking glass in the mould of Alice’s adventures – through which they can access different places, times, concepts and experiences.

WONDHERLANDS ‘DESIRE LINES’ ZINE

Designed and created by Honey Williams, this zine reveals more about the WondHERland Collective, and this unique multi-disciplinary collaboration. Take a look at the Zine here.

JAYAHADADREAM’S AR COMMISSION

In creating HMS Alice Liddell, Shezad Dawood blends physical and digital worlds. Visitors can use their phones to scan a QR code that unlocks an Augmented Reality filter, expanding the experience of the work. Together with the physical sculpture, this digital space invites audiences of all ages to embark, much like Alice in Wonderland, on literal and metaphorical journeys, moving through the past and into a kaleidoscopic future.

Reflecting his commitment to a collaborative approach, the AR experience features a newly commissioned song by JayaHadADream, who is a member of the WondHERland collective, Lead Artist of the Desire Lines project and an established musician in her own right. Jaya’s song reflects her style of thought provoking lyrics with soulful hip-hop beats, and is inspired by the narrative and life of Alice Liddell, the namesake of the artwork. Listen to Jaya’s AR Commision.

WONDHERLAND and THE ST.PANCRAS JUKEBOX

The WondHERland Collective have also contributed a playlist to St Pancras Station’s well-loved jukebox. Situated on platforms 11-13, listeners can hear songs and spoken word written by the musicians.