Golden Ice Cream Van/DJ Booth to celebrate World Record Store Day
As part of Estuary 21, artist Sadie Hennessy created the golden ice-cream van, inspired by the David Bowie song ‘Golden Years’
Estuary 2021 – the multi-disciplinary arts festival in North Kent and South Essex – comes to a close this weekend with the penultimate day of the festival, Saturday 12th June, coinciding with World Record Store Day – the annual celebration that brings together independent record store owners, music lovers and fans around the world.
To mark both of these occasions, members of the public will have one more chance to enjoy Sadie Hennessy’s Golden Years – a true highlight of Estuary 2021, which has seen over 90 works and events presented in outdoor locations across Kent and Essex in a celebration of culture, creativity, recovery and renewal.
Whitstable artist Sadie Hennessy has painted and decorated an old ice cream van with a musical theme, using old vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, instruments and leads.
Every Saturday throughout the festival, the vehicle has doubled as a live DJ booth. Passers-by have been invited to talk about the memories and stories behind their all-time favourite records and, in exchange, the DJ plays that song.
“Ice cream vans are symbols of nostalgia for me and remind me of my childhood,” says Hennessy. “So with that in mind, we’ve been taking requests for ‘Golden Oldies’ from members of the public, and listening to the memories they evoke. We hope that the van also functions as a symbol of hope, for the resurrection of the arts and music scene, post-Covid.”
On Saturday, Sadie will be playing requests from the van from 11am-2pm at St. George's Shopping Centre, Gravesend. Last chance to see!
She says: "Music is so important, and everybody I have met in Gravesend has a favourite song. Come and tell me yours!”
The ice cream van is just part of Sadie Hennessy’s project for Estuary 2021. Golden Years also features window displays inspired by the pop culture collections of the artist Sir Peter Blake, who was born in Dartford and attended Art School at Gravesend in Kent.
Blake (b.1932) is perhaps best known for his album cover design for the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He was a prominent figure in the British pop art movement and rose to fame in the 1950s, and Sadie Hennessy shares Blake’s interest in images borrowed from popular culture.
Hennessy put out a call to residents on the Kent side of the Thames Estuary to display their collections of memorabilia and ephemera in several shop windows at St George’s Shopping Centre, Gravesend.
Each shop window is accompanied by an audio recording of the collector talking about their exhibit. The displays include vintage movie posters, rare trainers, Dr Who and Diana Dors memorabilia, and much more besides. You can see the collections every day of Estuary 2021, until 13th June.
Later in the year, Sadie is hoping to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. She will be staging a world record attempt for the ‘largest gathering of people in one place dressed as David Bowie’. The world record attempt had to be delayed due to the pandemic and will now take place in the autumn.
Golden Years by Sadie Hennessy is a co-commission between Cement Fields and Gravesham Borough Council.