Dominoes
Dominoes takes as its starting point the simplest of ideas… a line of dominoes. Thousands of breezeblocks are used to create a moving sculpture which runs across the city, unfolding over the course of the day.
On streets, through parks, buildings and even on water, occasionally disappearing and then resurfacing, sometimes pausing for sculptural performances, the domino line threads its way through historical and everyday parts of the city, linking its diverse communities in a symbolic as well as physical chain of cause and effect.
Creating a celebration across the whole city, Dominoes transforms its rhythm for one special day. The project has the power to bring communities together through participation and engagement – hundreds of volunteers and audience members gather together to make this exceptional and unique event.
Dominoes takes a simple concept and uses it to create an alternative vision of the city, counterpointing, complementing and playing with the architecture, and for a brief moment reclaiming the city streets for the inhabitants and the public.
Directed by Julian Maynard Smith
"I've never seen Melbourne so happy", member of the public, Melbourne
“It was exciting and madness at the same time, making it a very memorable event, also it was incredible the amount of people who were involved and as one of the volunteers I want to thank everyone for a rather unique Sunday.”, participant, London
“It was exciting and madness at the same time, making it a very memorable event, also it was incredible the amount of people who were involved and as one of the volunteers I want to thank everyone for a rather unique Sunday.”, participant, London
"People are still talking about it, and the project really made an impact on a lot of people. I think we’ve never reached such a diverse group of people with a project." KIT, Copenhagen
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Commissioned by: Create09 Festival, London 2009, linking the five boroughs hosting the 2012 Olympic GamesProduced by: Ania Obolewicz for ArtsAdmin
Toronto - The Bentway, Sunday 22nd September 2024
Poznan - Malta Festival, Saturday 7th September 2024
Newbury - Corn Exchange, Saturday 25th June 2022
Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Friday 13th May 2022
Gent - Festival van de Architectuur, Saturday 21 September 2019
Hull - Absolutely Cultured, Saturday 11th August 2018
ZAT Festival - Montpelier, Saturday 14th April 2018
Bordeaux - Festival International des Arts de Bordeaux Métropole, Saturday, 1st October 2016 (Bordeaux) and Sunday 2nd October 2016 (Saint-Médard)
London - London's Burning, Saturday 3rd September 2016
Milton Keynes - MK International Festival, Saturday 16th July 2016
Rotterdam - Festival de Keuze, Sunday 20th March 2016
Melbourne - Arts Centre Melbourne, Saturday 6th February 2016
Cluj, Romania, - Saturday 26th September 2015
Stockholm Festival, Saturday 15 August 2015
Rennes - Les Tombées de la Nuit, Sunday 5 July 2015
Mons - European Capital of Culture 2015, Thursday 14 May 2015
Marseille - Lieux Publics, Sunday 28th September 2014
Mulhouse - Scènes de rue, Saturday 19th July 2014
Coventry - Coventry Mysteries Festival, Monday 26th May 2014
Copenhagen - Metropolis Festival, KIT, 1st August 2013
Bailleul, France & Poperinge, Belgium - Festival Nord Magnetic, 17th May 2013
Helsinki Festival 2012 - Night of the Arts, 23rd August 2012
Ljubljana - Bunker, Festival Madli Levi, 19th August 2011
Dijon - Festival Diese & Entre Cour et Jardins, 15th July 2010
London - Create09 Festival, East and South London, 26th July 2009
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Dominoes is a site-specific installation, a moving sculpture with possible performative elements. Since 2009 it has been re-created in different contexts and at different scales across the world:
TORONTO September 2024 The Bentway
Dominoes was produced by to address the divisions in the city caused by the Gardner Expressway cutting across the urban fabric of local neighbourhoods. Starting at the Wellington destructor in the north, the route passed through residential, public and commercial spaces, closing roads, visiting a restaurant, domestic houses, a gallery, and container retail park on its way to Bathurst Bridge. It fell into waste ground, climbed back up to the library, entered Canoe Landing Park, falling off the canoe and negotiating a large block structure under the expressway. Going through Loblaw’s department store and crossing a nine-lane junction on Lake Shore Boulevard, it visited the Arcadia Housing Co-operative and the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre before climbing a staircase on a floating dock and falling into Lake Ontario.
(see video)
POZNAN September 2024 Malta Festival
The return of the festival was dedicated to women’s culture, with the Dominoes route connecting the disparate elements of the city: ballet school, shopping mall, beach bar, town hall, pizza shop, old people’s social centre, elementary school, music shop, funeral home, church, museum, event venue, before ending at the site of a 1811 witch trial, the last in Europe.
NEWBURY June 2022 The Corn Exchange
From a hotel window in the Market Place, the line wanders through the shopping mall and a church, into an apartment block, falls onto a barge blocking the river, across the lock to a pub, the Salvation Army, a youth centre and a bandstand, to finish at the centre of the circular pond in Victoria Park.
NORWICH May 2022 Norfolk and Norwich Festival,
Starting in an abandoned 1970’s cinema and ending at the 21st Century Forum, the line connected the affluent and the humble, the old and new: a 17th century Regency hotel, the brutalist Anglia Square, the historic university Halls, the Playhouse theatre, contemporary sheltered housing, a nightclub, Jerrold’s department store and Norwich market.
GENT September 2019 Festival van de Architectuur
Within a programme of inner-city urban regeneration, the route took in community centres and apartment buildings, a priest’s house, a boarding school and a mosque, before catching a tram to an area of run-down housing, where the line ended in a park established on the site of a demolished textile factory.
HULL August 2018 Absolutely Cultured
Emerging from a boat in the boatyard the line follows the riverside, before catching a lift to a city housing estate. It enters a bingo hall, visits shopping arcades, falls from the balcony of City Hall and climbs up the statue of Queen Victoria. In Princes Quay, it climbs across some giant block furniture, through a disco, Hull Minster and the Guildhall, and ends at a spiral tower in Queens Gardens.
(see video)
MONTPELLIER April 2018 ZAT Festival
Starting from the middle of a lake by the Hotel de Ville, the line heads down the river towards the suburbs where it winds through narrow roads, secret paths private house. It has a race with itself on a go-kart track. Negotiates block structures made by students and visits classrooms before finishing in the school grounds.
BORDEAUX - SAINT-MÉDARD October 2016 Festival International des Arts de Bordeaux Métropole
Two lines of dominoes were produced in two towns, separate but connected, linking the palatial residence of the king of France and the location of his munitions factory. The combined event started at the Royal Arsenal, and visited enroute private courtyards, an Algerian café, a church, a grand arch and narrow cobbled streets, before ending at the Place Royale and the Miroir d’Eau.
(see video)
LONDON September 2016 London's Burning
Celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London the 6km domino line split into three as it traced the spread from its origin in Pudding Lane outwards to St Paul’s Cathedral, the City of London and the present-day Barbican. In each place a tower of blocks collapsed in flames.
(see video)
ROTTERDAM March 2016 Festival de Keuze
From a ship moored in the harbour, the line through bars cinemas theatres shops and churches, crossing busy multiple tramlines and roads, the dominoes wind through central Rotterdam, finishing outside the Schouwburg by climbing a giant staircase.
MILTON KEYNES July 2016 Milton Keynes International Festival
Starting from the roof of landmark The Point, the route runs through private houses and a shopping mall, a theatre and a gallery, a parked car and the Snozone ski slope, finishing in the middle of the main boulevard.
(see video)
MELBOURNE February 2016 Arts Centre Melbourne,
On video, the widespread districts of the city are brought together as a single domino line, which transforms into a live public event when it reaches central Melbourne.
Starting in a container park, the dominoes cross the Maribyrnong river, through a Chinese temple, a beach, seaside café, apartment tower, wealthy mansions, shops and bars, an inner-city estate, a Thai restaurant and a homeless person’s kitchen, before falling from Melbourne town hall window, on their way through the business district to the Melbourne Arts Centre.
(see video)
CLUJ September 2015 Fundaţia AltArt
Beginning and ending with the statues of two kings, the domino line is a reminder of the long Hungarian/Romanian history that lies beneath its tour of contemporary Cluj, visiting the cinema, telecom building, shopping centre, skate park, the farmer’s market and the city’s major transit point.
STOCKHOLM August 2015 Stockholm Festival
The run began in a migrant soup kitchen in a churchyard, then went to Sergelstorg, passing through the shopping mall and the Kulturhuset to the Kings Garden, where it fell from a window of the Hotel Kungstradgarden before crossing to Berzelii Park. Returning to the Royal Opera House, it went through the king’s private chamber and finished by falling into the sea.
RENNES July 2015 Les Tombées de la Nuit
Dominoes was brought to an area in the process of urban transition. In a public square the blocks first climbed a staircase, only to fall onto dominoes leading across a field, where they fell from a bridge onto a boat. After a journey down the river, the line passed by a telecoms building, through functioning and abandoned buildings, curving round to end up where it started, climbing the same staircase.
(see video)
MONS May 2015 European Capital of Culture
A tour of cobbled streets, shops, galleries, schools, a youth hostel, gardens, apartments – ending at the Grand Place, performing on the stage of the city theatre, before falling from the balcony of the town hall.
MARSEILLE Sept 2014 Lieux Publics
The domino line started from a train at the central station, descended the steps into the Algerian quarter, through street cafes and a sports centre, climbed a modernist apartment block, crossed the ancient Greek harbour and circled the Bourse, to end under the mirrored canopy of l'Ombrière on the waterfront.
(see video)
MULHOUSE July 2014 Scènes de Rue
Dodging the trams, the line left Place Franklin to go through shops and restaurants and businesses in the city centre. Passing by the Place de la Reunion the line returned 10 minutes later to climb the Temple Saint-Etienne and fall 40m from the roof to collapse the block towers.
COVENTRY May 2014 Coventry Mysteries Festival
Dominoes was part of the effort to revitalise the modern and medieval city centre – starting in an alms house for the elderly, it wandered through the social variations of the city, traversing ancient cobbled streets and brutalist 1960’s architecture, to finish next to the new cathedral, in the ruins of the old.
COPENHAGEN August 2013 Metropolis Festival (KIT)
With streamed live and recorded video, the outer areas of the city were joined seamlessly with the live, public event in the city centre.
The domino line appeared from the piles of gravel in the municipal yards to travel through the Colony Gardens and Christiania and the new architecture of Amager, before taking the ferry to the city centre, where it wound from the Nikolaj Church through the central Court, shops, streets and residential to finish at the Town Hall.
(see video)
BAILLEUL and POPERINGE May 2013 Biennale Nord Magnétic
Towns on either side of the border in French and Belgian Flanders, launched the first edition of the Biennale. Traditional separations were queried by the shared occupation of bars, schools, churches and houses.
(see video)
HELSINKI August 2012 Night of the Arts, Helsinki Festival
The line emerged on an uninhabited island, traversed the Somali area of Meri-Rastela, and after a trip on the metro went through a traditional sauna and the city sewers before making its way to the main cathedral square.
(see video)
LJUBLJANA August 2011 Mladi Levi
Falling from an apartment block in the centre of town, the first domino set off a line through the streets, houses and parks, video streamed to the audience gathered at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, where the last blocks cross a pond and fall onto a drum kit, starting the festival.
DIJON July 2010 Diese Festival - Entre Cour et Jardins
In the medieval streets of the city, the domino line went through the historic streets of Dijon, through private courts and public buildings, leading up to the opening concert of the summer festival.
LONDON July 2009 Create09
Winner of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Award, Dominoes connected the five ‘host boroughs’ of the 2012 London Olympics.The line emerged in West Ham cemetery, went through a house in Leytonstone and fell into the London sewers, to emerge in a primary school in Tower Hamlets. From Mile End Park, it went through an art gallery and fell into a boat on Regent’s Canal, from where it sailed to Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs where the crowd had lunch. The line continued through the foot tunnel under the Thames, finishing with a performance on the steps of Wren’s Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
(see video)
