This weekend (Sat 22nd & Sunday 23rd July)  “Time Bascule”, is being screened at the Scoop Cinema – an amphitheater just a stone’s throw from Tower Bridge. Her film was commissioned by Tower Bridge to celebrate its 125th Anniversary and will be looping every hour between 12:00-18:00 over the weekend as part of a free festival called In a Field by a Bridge, which brings together a selection of films exploring sustainability, ecology, nature, community, localism, and creativity. Below is a feature that Design Exchange wrote about the film:

2020 has given us all reason to stop and take stock, and beneath the obvious crises the year has brought to the fore conversations around the Climate Emergency, and how memories are recorded, stored, and recalled. 

Both of these subjects are tackled in a new work from artist and filmmaker Di Mainstone. The commission was originally created to mark the 125th Anniversary of Tower Bridge and nods to Mainstone’s “Human Harp” project, in which she played New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge and others like industrial-strength harps.

‘Time Bascule’ sees Mainstone reimagine one of London’s most iconic landmarks as a giant musical instrument, a focal point for a make-believe world where dream-like fantasy and reality meet in a fairytale-esque story, retelling a forgotten but significant chapter of the structure’s history. That of Hannah Griggs, a keen gardener, Cook-In-Service to the Bridge Master 1911-1915 and one of the first women employed at the landmark.

During lockdown Mainstone used her time to further develop the film’s storyline, mixing her fantastical imaginings of Hannah Griggs with documentary interviews captured on the 125th Anniversary of the crossing.  ‘Time Bascule’ has since garnered attention around the world. An aesthetic delight from start to finish, it’s also rich with jumping-off points for deeper discourse, such as how Griggs’ story was unearthed on Tower Bridge and how her role is now celebrated.  Why were other women like Griggs so often ‘written out of history’?  What does this tell us about biases within society and history? Who decides what constitutes an event that is deemed historic?

Enfolded within the film’s storyline, Mainstone explores the discovery of Griggs’ connection to Tower Bridge, which was unearthed by chance, a century after she left the landmark when her granddaughter Susan Belcher visited the crossing.  Staff overheard Susan telling a friend that her grandmother was one of the first women to work at Tower Bridge.

“Today, Tower Bridge celebrates Hannah Griggs in an exhibition in their Engine Rooms. When I first saw Hannah’s portrait, I remember being transfixed by her arresting gaze and wondering if perhaps she had been a Suffragette!” explains Mainstone.

Within the film, scenes of a greened thoroughfare complete with white dandelions spanning the River Thames, reference Grigg’s love of gardening. This could also be read as a subtle (or perhaps not-so) nod to the ill-fated Garden Bridge project, which the UK capital spent £53million drawing up plans for, before ditching the idea altogether. Meanwhile, the jarring vision of nature taking over this Kodak-favourite site via bright and fantastical renderings of wildlife can’t help but invoke conversations about our urgent need to re-wild much of the planet.

“In my imagination, Tower Bridge’s iconic“bascule” system, which seesaws up and down for passing ships, became a symbol for the equilibrium of our planet’s ecosystems, ” Mainstone says.

“Tower Bridge introduced me to Hannah Griggs’ granddaughter Susan Belcher and her great-granddaughter and doppelgänger Hannah Belcher. The pair told me that as far as they knew Hannah was not a Suffragette but she had been a passionate gardener, growing fruit, veg, and flowers which she would sell at the market,” says Mainstone.

“I was later introduced to Lily-Rose Adams, daughter of Hannah Griggs, who very sadly passed away in the summer. Susan shared a picture of Lily-Rose in her mother’s Garden playing music through a gramophone. The idea of music and its effect on plant growth was seeded. I later learned that Susan and Hannah Belcher both care deeply about the environment.” she continues, before recalling the experience of working on the project.

“When I was writing Time Bascule, I worked from a tiny studio in the abutment of Tower Bridge where Hannah Griggs once lived. I felt connected to Hannah as I sketched and wrote, peering across the bridge through a tiny window as the tides and visitors ebbed and flowed.  During this time we experienced one of the hottest summer days on record, followed by bursts of torrential rain.  I started to imagine a musical conversation between the river, the plants, and Hannah Griggs” says Mainstone.

While Mainstone was filming on Tower Bridge Extinction Rebellion performed a bike swarm, singing as they rode by – “The people gonna rise like the water, we’re gonna face this crisis now, I hear the voice of my great-granddaughter, singing climate justice now…”

“At that moment, I remember feeling a shiver of excitement as I saw the beautiful connection between Hannah Griggs’ passion for nature and her great granddaughter’s concern for the environment,” Mainstone explains. A few weeks later Extinction Rebellion created the extraordinary ‘floating house’ artwork that inspired us to visualise Hannah Griggs’ house gliding across the Thames.” 

Understandably, Time Bascule has been picking up awards in recent months. Best Experimental Film at Montreal Independent Film Festival, Best Experimental Film at the Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival; Outstanding Achievement Fantasy Short, Experimental Short and Female Director at the Los Angeles based IndieX Film Fest. The film is accompanied with music by sonic surrealists Architects of Rosslyn, vocal arrangements by acclaimed ‘intercultural goddess’, WITCiH founder and rock sitarist Bishi Bhattacharya and ‘electronic pop/folk artist’ IORA, and a bewitching harp composition by London based harpist Olivia Jageurs.

The Design Exchange team was honoured to work on the filming and production of ‘Time Bascule’, and we are excited to announce that once local restrictions allow we will be screening Mainstone’s thought-provoking work in London and other locations throughout 2021.  

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