Piano Burning | Room40

Burning a piano brings mixed feelings for me. On one hand it’s a beautiful display of the tangible becoming intangible, the materiality of this world being shown before us as temporary structures, our feelings of attachment and worship of an inanimate object being torn apart before our eyes, while the other hand is pulling me to leave this machine for what it’s designed for. To make music. To contrast emotion from the player to the heard. To create limitless pieces of art that may inspire others to do the same. Learn it, love it and languish in it.

Many pieces would have been played on it and it was nice to hear a final song - a spiritual experience in itself – as the pianist played whilst the piano was set on fire.

I’d read the Brisbane Festival program thinking this was dis-used piano, no longer functioning – but this piano was fully playable. It bought up feelings of waste and privilege. Having to wait and play the guitar that my uncles had put down for a moment, or not being able to afford an instrument that I could call my own, working in the environment I do with young people who are marginalised, I couldn’t help but look at this through that lens. Is this a display of how privileged our art is as a society now?

I wonder if pianos across Brisbane might now be burnt to replicate the intention of this work by artist Lawrence English (Room40). If the way we source materials as conscious artists in 2021 means that we must use the excess, the trash,  the no longer functioning TV’s for our installations etc… Does a working piano constitute as okay for burning?

I’d like to argue that pianos are fixable and have function even in their stuck keys, a far more enterprise arrangement might be that every park, or every resi-care, or every hospital, or every jail get a piano. I feel more interested in this as a contribution. Something longer lasting …. But again that’s my interpretation.

“Minimalism doesn’t mean less, it means going deeper.” I reposition and consider the work again. Why does it need to mean anything? Humans have that innateness that yearns for the meaning in our surroundings, our existence.  

 As a musician and a Tongan I’m from a background where pianos are rare. A western instrument, with the same stringed tones as the guitar and ukulele which became prolific through the Pacific. I remember in Vanuatu seeing a piano falling apart outside a bunker youth centre with many of the keys having already crumbled by weather or having fell out, and there were 8-10 kids lined up patiently waiting to give it a go. How does one see a piano being burnt in Australia, and unsee the experience of these children in third world countries?

Bislama is the national language of Vanuatu, a sort of English based pidgin, whilst visiting, some locals taught me the bislama words for piano:

“Wan bigfala black bokis hemi gat waet tut mo hemi gat bluk tut, sipos you kilim smol, hemi singaot gud.”

This word an action, a description of function. The two are not separated. Same as the western view, piano comes from the original Italian name for the instrument: piano e forte, ’soft and loud’. 

This image & cover image: Atmosphere Photography

I arrive at Hamilton’s industrial complex and follow the finches and huge pink archways into the dock yard. An intimidating light installation meets the eye as you realise it’s been blown up with air and as you walk through it seems to activate low chiming bells which are somehow activated digitally. I walk down past the bar and around a warehouse, the pathway lit up by pink LED’s secured to the ground. It’s an early spring night, and the weather is warm with a slight breeze down by the river.

 A piano sits atop a bed of sand, lit up by a spotlight. Some microphones are set up behind it about four metres back, with a cordoned off fence line and about 50 people already waiting. Three cameras are set up to film, and there is a familiar roving photographer capturing stills from the perimeter.

I move behind a photographer’s tripod so that my vantage spot is undisturbed, as it draws closer to the starting time, around 100 people now gather, as the artist addresses the crowd and provides a small introduction on the inspiration for the piece from its inspiration of Annea Lockwood, a composer from New Zealand who wrote a piece known as Piano Burning. After having listened to recordings, I believe the pianist on the night was playing an interpretation of her original composition.

Image: Atmosphere Photography

Annea is quoted saying, “The piano must always be one that’s irretrievable, that nobody could work on, that no tuner or rebuilder could possibly bring back. It’s got to be a truly defunct piano.”

It’s not the first time pianos have been burnt. The US and UK Armed forces have burnt pianos for several reasons over the years, its origin is undocumented and has been the subject of myth and decades of storytelling.

Japanese artist Yōsuke Yamashita plays the piano on a beach front in Japan until he is no longer able to sit at the piano. He refers to this as a near death experience.

Image: Atmosphere Photography

In his 2012 video installation, The End of Civilisation, Douglas Gordon reflected on the piano’s place in society. He stated that, “A piano started to represent for me the ultimate symbol of western civilisation. Not only is it an instrument, it's a beautiful object that works as a sculpture, but it has another function entirely”.

As the piano burns on that Brisbane riverfront amongst planes over head, some kids down the front talk loudly in wonderment and excitement, while another right beside me asks his Mum – “Why are they burning a piano Mum? That’s just wrong – I don’t get it”.

A dinghy passes by and the words are heard across the water from the passengers within asking ‘What’s going on?’ No one in the crowd responds. Maybe we didn’t know what to say?

I went home and played piano for several hours. I decided also to light a fire in my fireplace. I reflected on these two elements of sound and fire and was happy that the two were separate.