I must admit that although I was very very excited to go into the church, my first impressions weren't the best. Yes, it does look a bit like a gypsy camp/jumble sale/abandoned garden, but when you actually explore it, it's very interesting. There is an interactive table with white wooden tiles, paint and paint brushes which invites you to create your own art (which is something I love about the Biennial - there are so many activities to do), there are very menacing looking black charred spikes, obviously symbolic of the bombing, as well as ironic 'no smoking' and 'fire exit' signs hanging from the walls all over the place, along with the placement of two fire extinguishers tied to a plywood sign which says fire stuff.
My fave piece though was an instillation, a little hut which was made of shards of wood, and written on the walls inside were stories about bombings in the war, which then invited you to write your own stories and memories of the bombings. Being a history lover, I read a whole load of them, and they were so moving. One of them told of a bomb coming in through the window and hitting the wardrobe and their nan picked it up and through it out of the window to avoid the whole family dying. It's a really dramatic piece of art and the involvement of real stories makes it even more touching.
I have never been anywhere like this before and I really was an amazing day, I would recommend it to everyone. It did feel a bit dishevelled inside but I think that this is meant to suggest the chaos that was here before - the rubbish that they've used such as the insides of wheels and old signs all has a reason (the inside of the wheels were used as the sound of bells - it was amaze).
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