"Café, theatre, local landmark, meeting place. All of these describe the Movement Café, but perhaps it is its crowning poem which defines it.
Morag Myerscough was commissioned to design and build a structure on a site left scarred by demolition near the Greenwich DLR station, London, UK. She wanted the building to speak. She wanted it to provoke ideas, and through a collaboration between Myerscough and the official poet of the 2012 Olympics, Lemn Sissay, MBE, the building was given a voice.
Sissay has also been artist-in-residence at the Southbank and his work has appeared on several buildings. Myerscough & Sissay both share a fascination with Twitter. As a poet, he's long been intrigued by its possibilities of using and compressing language. Each day he creates a ""morning tweet"" for his followers @lemnsissay. Myerscough uses Twitter to record three specific events which happen each day, expressed through colour @moragmyerscough.
Myerscough and Sissay talked extensively about tweets being a source for the building. The structure was temporary and its location already transient. Twitter's transience and engagement of the everyday made it a perfect solution for the site. Myerscough chose Sissay's tweet:
27 June 2012
'This is the house. This is the path. This is the gate. This is the opening. This is the morning. This is a person passing. This is eye contact.
The phrases were hand-painted in super-graphics letter by letter by Myerscough and her team. They wrapped around the building. This is how buildings get to speak."
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