God So Loves Decay (Performance)

This was a one-off performance in Luton Town centre that took place on Saturday 4th May 2016. The work consisted of punk musician, Russ Crimewave, ‘preaching’ the collected lyrics of Luton-based post-punk band, UK Decay. The site of the performance was outside of Luton Town Hall; a town hall burned to the ground in the Peace Day riots of 1919, and a regular site for a range of religious preachers. For around 4 hours, Russ preached from a specially printed publication containing UK Decay’s collected lyrics. Free copies of the publication were available for distribution to the passing audience. The work was commissioned by Sunridge Avenue Projects, which was a 9-month programme of arts activity that happened across Luton, commissioned and curated by the artist Dominic Allan a.k.a Dominic from Luton. This work was then re-presented at the ‘Curating Resistance: Punk as Archival Method’ conference at UCLA, Los Angeles, in February 2018.