Alexandra Gardens Bandstand

'Alexandra Gardens Bandstand' was a context specific intervention and sound work for public space, developed and performed within the seaside town of Weymouth (UK) – commissioned and produced by B-side (Weymouth, UK) and presented as part of the B-side multi-media festival 2010. The work was created within Brookes' ongoing collaboration with Spanish artist and performer Rosa Casado, and initiated the exploration of their long-term 'Just a little bit of history repeating' project.

The work intervened into the social and commercial activities of an active amusements arcade, sited within a public garden on the seafront of Weymouth, by reconstructed the concert programme delivered at the site by the town’s municipal band a century earlier. Music from the programme of the closing concert of the season, attended by a thousand people that same week in 1910, was rebroadcast in situ, amongst the amusements and arcade games that now occupy the site, within the arcade building that echoes both the architecture and location of the original bandstand. The sound was made available via FM broadcast, to anyone visiting the site with a radio – while remaining otherwise ‘invisible’ to all others.

The work was developed through collaboration with local residents, historians and archives.