“Here’s To You” by Lowri Evans (June 20th 2018)

Behind Islington Mill an artist had set herself up in residence behind a small table and a sign reading “Hello OPEN.” On the table were a few old bottles. People were invited to bring something and destroy it and these were emergency bottles for people who didn’t bring anything. Lowri Evans’ performance of potential catharsis through violence against inanimate objects was advertised thus: “Do you have a household item you would like to smash against a wall? Do you have something you use every day that you’d like to destroy forever? Do you have something precious you’d like to break into tiny pieces? Then now is your chance! Bring your object and yourself and tell me all about it!” Lowri was dressed in a high visibility fluorescent yellow jacket and kindly supplied protective goggles, hard-hats and gloves so smashers wouldn’t get hurt. I brought an old stereo I’d found abandoned on the street and had taken home in the hope that it would function, however it didn’t so I suppose it wasn’t really something precious. This turned out to be the largest object anyone smashed, but I foolishly only wore goggles and got green paint all over my hands from the large shipping container that things were being smashed against. I should have worn gloves! After each person smashed an object, Lowri would select a shard from the debris and place it in a small transparent plastic bag with a message phrased from whatever the smasher wanted to say to the object. My bag has a transistor and a message tag reading, “Graeme To carrying you home and never working.” She asked everyone how they felt about smashing an object. I told her it was fun but I didn’t feel any different after smashing the stereo, I had a sense of equanimity about it. Some people did get some catharsis out of it, especially Jen Wu who it was generally agreed threw the best smash of the day. Her bottle shattered into so many fragments it seemed magical: almost total destruction. Later in the afternoon more people gathered and some stuck around smashing lots of objects, mostly glass but also an old squash racket. It was a smashing party. Lowri smashed the final object, a glass she’d brought all the way from Brazil. She told us that after the end of her last long term relationship she had smashed every glass in the house except this one. Now even that last glass was destroyed forever.