Michael Landy
Lemon Meringue - artist film for East Bank, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park commission
Lemon Meringue (2024)is a public art commission by Michael Landy on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which can be found along the Waterfront at East Bank. Lemon Meringue borrows the visual language of market stall signs as a nod to the origins of cockney rhyming slang, created by costermongers as a unique east London language. Landy’s choices of phrase reflect the new institutions which have arrived on East Bank, and celebrate the evolving language, history and identity of east London. Additionally, Michael Landy worked with spoken-word artist Jonzi D to create new cockney rhyming slang phrases to reflect more recent diasporic influences.
I created two films for this commission:
A conversation with Michael Landy and Anneliese Amoah
Poet Anneliese Amoah spoke with Michael Landy about the inspiration and creative process behind Lemon Meringue.The conversation served as research for a new poem by Anneliese, commissioned as part of the second film.
Lemon Meringue x Voices of East Bank
Drawing from several archives, this video work links together Lemon Meringue, and the community driven oral history project it inspired, Voices of East Bank, which captures and honours the voices, stories and experiences of those that make up the communities around the newly created East Bank. The film reflects the many layers that make up the creative avenues of the project, drawing on my conversations with the artist Michael Landy, curator Louise Trodden, commissioner Ruth Lin Wong Holmes, UCL academic Dr Anna Maguire, and additionally looks back at the Young Co-Producers project with HereUs which ran alongside Voices of East Bank and the commissioning process. There is also a new poem from Anneliese Amoah exploring the themes behind Lemon Meringue and Voices of East Bank.
The final film weaves all of these inspirations together, using oral history snippets from Voices of East Bank, photography and film content of east London from Newham Council’s archives, as well as my own personal film archive from projects with east London communities from 2011 to the present day. It is a celebration of people, place, language and identity of communities around the Olympic Park, which constantly evolve and develop to create the tapestry of east London.
Lemon Meringue (2024) is an artwork by Michael Landy, commissioned by London Legacy Development Corporation and curated by Louise Trodden for East Bank, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with input from Jonzi D. The artwork inspired Voices of East Bank, and oral history project sharing community stories of cockney rhyming slang (‘lemon meringue’) and east London’s diverse languages in 2023. The films are a collaboration with Louise Trodden and Ruth Lin Wong Holmes. My additional thanks to Michael Landy, Anneliese Amoah, Jess Conway and Cas Bradbeer at Newham Heritage Services, Amy Keegan at London Screen Archives, Film London, Dr Anna Maguire, Marilyn Fontaine, Johnny the Sun Skater, Skate Lisa and Rosie Murdoch.