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Artist(s) Cameron, Shirley & Miller, Roland (aka Landscape Gardening and Living Rooms; or Landscapes and Living Spaces)Collaborator(s) Jeff Nuttall, members of Bath Arts Workshop (Diz Willis et al.)Country of Residence Wales, England Title Cyclamen CyclistsDate 19 March 1971 Extent Site Swansea Event Sponsor Welsh Arts CouncilType PerformanceKeywords surrealism, urbanityTraces colour slides: various, private collection Shirley Cameron and Roland Miller; illustration: Henri, Adrian. Environments and Happenings. The World of Art Library - New Directions. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974: pp. 126–7, no 99 (illustration)Notes Other important performance events in Wales this year Ian Hinchliffe The Visit (Swansea); Shirley Cameron & Roland Miller Look & See (Swansea), Aberaeron Carnival (Aberaeron), Barry Summer School |
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Cyclamen Cyclists
Cyclamen cyclists have been reported, machine and rider all in shocking pink-to-mauve. Close together in the docks, spread out in parks, so that you only see one at a time. The riders perform what is in effect a tiny one-act play, what the authors rightly call a ‘piece of work’, appropriate to the site. Lumps of slag have been wrapped up in bright colours as trains go by in the Swansea valley.[...] All these ephemeral shocks are due to Roland Miller and Shirley Cameron, who are presently domiciled at Mumbles on Swansea Bay. Their aim is to increase perception: see one arranged surprise and you will be on the lookout for the natural surprises which are all around us. This is the “happening” taken out of the introverted atmosphere of the art gallery into real life. This is also surrealism taken out of the manifestoes and the picture-frames into its natural home, the landscape. [...] The result is down to earth, comprehensible: the imagination that produces the results is sophisticated. So what you get from the experience is up to you; there are no intellectual barriers to overcome which, as it happens, is exactly the spirit of Swansea itself. What you get form city or cyclamen cyclists depends on how big or deep you are; and the result is happiness at any level, a positive with no negative. [...]
The implications are colossal, and lucky the town (new town, especially) that is prepared to take them up. Meanwhile,Miller and Cameron feel that the cyclamen cyclists have done their job in Swansea and anyone who wishes to carry on in another place is welcome to collect them free [...]. They will only have to provide persons to inhabit the cyclamen suits, and the visual imaginationto make use of them. [...] Thsis could be the breakthrough between art and life, or rather joint-together of parts which should never have been separated in the first place. High stakes: but if you have enough hwyl it will happen.