Resurrection Restoration

Resurrection Manifestations documents the trajectory of the striking former Carlton Cinema, a historical landmark on Essex Road, London, from 1930’s cine-variety to its present restoration and reincarnation as a place of worship. The work was filmed while the auditorium was being renovated and restored by it’s new owners, the Evangelical Church ‘Resurrection Manifestations’. The film features the church choir during services and rehearsals intercut with the restoration work taking place at the same time.

Here the secular space of worship – the picture palace – is repurposed as a scared space – re-casting the building’s original iconography while aligning cinema’s suspension of disbelief with spiritual notions of faith. The idea of re-birth is both literal – in the restoration of the building – and metaphorical in the way that resurrection underlies the ethos of this form of religion.