Berwick-upon-Tweed is sited in traditionally and famously contested land, set exhausting by the border between the English and the Scots and altering palms between the 2 nations some 14 instances. That location has made it a garrison city, one given large, state-of-the-art Venetian-Empire-style fortifications within the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and an imposing barracks, designed by the nice architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, in 1717-21, 20 years earlier than the “Forty 5” and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s legendary march south in his failed try to revive the Stuart monarchy to England in 1745.
A brand new community-based movie, Parade (2025), by the London-based artist Matthew Rosier, is exhibiting for 3 nights solely this weekend, celebrating the city’s numerous Twenty first-century neighborhood and its historic barracks (for some years decommissioned and residential to the city museum) by projecting the movie onto the huge partitions of its parade floor, depicting neighborhood teams—youth theatre, soccer groups, the Royal Nationwide Lifeboat Establishment volunteers, veterans of the King’s Personal Scottish Borderers, pipers and dancers—march by in flip in all their vibrant selection.
The parade floor of the barracks at Berwick-upon-Tweed, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, exhibiting the three partitions the place Matthew Rosier’s Parade is to be projected {Photograph}: The Artwork Newspaper
The Parade venture has been commissioned by Berwick Shines, The Dwelling Barracks Cultural Engagement programme. The movie’s performances come simply as English Heritage prepares to embark on constructing works with companions together with the King’s Personal Scottish Borderers (as soon as based mostly on the barracks and resulting from reopen their museum there in 2027), the Maltings Belief and Northumberland County Council to develop the barracks right into a cultural hub with a contemporary, purpose-built gallery and exhibition areas. On 28 February it was introduced {that a} £4.5m grant from The Nationwide Lottery Heritage Fund has been awarded to English Heritage on behalf of the Berwick Barracks Partnership.
A historical past in neighborhood film-making
Over a number of days’ filming in early February, in blended climate, a lot of it arriving bracingly off the North Sea, all kinds of teams strutted their liveried and uniformed stuff for Rosier and his staff on location on the barracks. Rosier made the movie in collaboration with what he describes as a “notably superb manufacturing” staff from the Maltings arts centre. The ultimate model of the movie is being projected on to the barracks partitions, round three sides of the parade floor, at ten instances life measurement.
The Grand Finalist Mr Homosexual GB 2024 is projected on to the partitions of the barracks parade floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as a part of Matthew Rosier’s movie Parade (2025) Jennifer Charlton Images / Courtesy of The Maltings Berwick Belief
Rosier has a observe document in filming with British communities, pulling collectively their collective tales. He tries, he tells The Artwork Newspaper, “to get a consultant number of folks from that neighborhood and to get to know completely different teams and folks after which making a [filming process] that will get projected again into the city”.
His first such venture was in Macclesfield, in Cheshire, the place, he says, he made “a projection on a staircase via the center of the city. And folks got here out to see primarily per week within the lifetime of that staircase. And it was fairly astonishing how folks responded simply to seeing a replaying of individuals and character as a result of it turns on a regular basis life right into a type of filmic expertise, which was fairly pretty to see.” For an additional venture, at Pontefract in Yorkshire, the movie was projected “on to timber and reworking folks into timber … and that was extra narrative pushed”.
Nancy’s Dancers are projected on to the partitions of the barracks parade floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as a part of Matthew Rosier’s movie Parade (2025) Jennifer Charlton Images / Courtesy of The Maltings Berwick Belief
The dimensions of Rosier’s initiatives has been rising over time. “With these initiatives, he says, “it is at all times how do you turn out to be consultant and it is finally about making a scenario the place persons are conscious of what is occurring after which they really feel it is accessible and so they really feel like they’re really invited to be a part of it. And in addition that it is an thrilling prospect.”
At Berwick, Rosier and the Maltings staff ran “info days …we might current the venture time and again, and a great deal of folks got here. And the concept was that folks would come … [and] disperse the message extra broadly. After which we had a few months to get the schedule in place for the filming days.” In the end the filming concerned 800 folks, or almost 10% of the city’s inhabitants.
The River Tweed Wild Salmon Firm is projected on to the partitions of the barracks parade floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as a part of Matthew Rosier’s movie Parade (2025) Jennifer Charlton Images / Courtesy of The Maltings Berwick Belief
Come the filming days, Rosier put down the relaxed ambiance to the neighborhood teams’ enthusiasm and to working with the choreographer Chloe Smith, who’s from Berwick. “That was an essential a part of the proposal,” he says, which he pitched in an open name. “That I’d work with an area choreographer in order that I may be directing within the background, ensuring every part’s correctly [while she is] there on the forefront making folks really feel snug and have enjoyable.”
Laser-projected efficiency
For the three evenings when the movie is proven on the parade floor, the viewers will stand and the staff will use 11 projectors—”very punchy laser projectors”, Rosier says—mounted on small towers positioned centrally via the parade floor, in the midst of the viewers.
Whitadder Uncommon and Native Breeds is projected on to the partitions of the barracks parade floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as a part of Matthew Rosier’s movie Parade (2025) Jennifer Charlton Images / Courtesy of The Maltings Berwick Belief
Earlier than his transfer into making movies for and about neighborhood, Rosier educated in structure. He was, he says, “fairly focused on expertise and extra within the public house a part of design moderately than the constructing a part of design.” What he found via public artwork specifically, he says, “is a method of making experiences that deliver folks collectively”.
He’s focused on altering the surroundings “in a method that’s comparatively mild contact”. Projecting his neighborhood movies is, he says, an ideal instance of that. “Since you do not want actually something there on the bottom, it simply transforms, it is like magic. And I feel that is when expertise is at its strongest, when it does really feel like magic.”
“It was simply remodeling one surroundings into one thing else,” he provides. “Reworking the barracks into a large parade, remodeling timber into folks, remodeling a staircase into its previous recollections of itself. and that is at all times how I’ve checked out it.”
Rag Bag Morris dancers are projected onto the partitions of the barracks parade floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as a part of Matthew Rosier’s movie Parade (2025) Jennifer Charlton Images / Courtesy of The Maltings Berwick Belief
Yet another take
Again on the parade floor for the penultimate day of capturing in early February, Rosier is behind the digital camera and Chloe Smith is making ready a junior soccer staff and their coaches, watched on by warmly clad dad and mom—properly schooled within the seasonal climate by numerous Saturday afternoons on chilly midwinter touchlines—for a 3rd take. It’s within the third take that Smith hopes to get every group virtually dancing.
And with that final dancing take, the city of Berwick is aware of that it has come one step nearer—earlier than Rosier embarks on a two-and-a-half-week dash of post-production—to witnessing its day by day life, and its diverse communities, projected again in town’s historic barracks partitions as a filmic expertise.
Ten instances life measurement.
Parade, Berwick Barracks Parade Floor, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 28 February, 1 March and a pair of March.
