Jordan, Mark

19/07/2009

Audio file duration: 00:29:49 1 PDF file Format of original recording: wav 44.1 khz 16 bit MicportPro.

These recordings are part of the One & Other interview series that has been licensed by the Wellcome Trust for public use under Creative Commons Attribution-non commercial-Share Alike 3.00 UK. This means that anyone based in the UK can share and remix the material, as long as it is for non-commercial purposes. Credits, where given, should be to the library at Wellcome Collection, London. (c) Wellcome Trust.

Mark Jordan is from Belfast. (Interview taken after he was on the plinth). He was initially going to make a statement on the futility of war. He decided that friendship and love are most important to him so wanted to make a statement to show he cares. So he decided to ask all the people he cares about to let him extract some of their blood; they all said yes. He then asked all the same people to write a poem about the importance of friendship and love. He did a lot of research before extracting the blood. He supplemented his friends' love with theatrical blood and bathed in it on the plinth. He is going to make a scrapbook of photos and poems for his friends. He has had Crohn's disease for ten years, which forced him to retire. He used to do a lot of extreme sports. Describes bathing in blood as a very intimate experience. Loving relationships are important to him. From a young age he was aware of the conflict between the Protestant and Catholic communities and he had first-hand experience of bombings. He later got into youth and community work and ended up running a charity for recovering drug addicts. His illness led him to start writing and he has a short film called Rip and the Preacher currently being shown in film festivals, he is now working on a film called The Dinner Party. He hopes his time on the plinth will make people consider what friendship means to them.