The Saints
Paul Pfeiffer
September - October 2007

Wembley Stadium lies at the heart of England's image of itself. Built for the Empire Exhibition of 1924, the original stadium hosted many momentous events which form part of the collective memory of the nation - sporting contests and mass rallies - moments of great national remembrance and rejoicing.

The opening of the new national stadium at Wembley in 2007 was the catalyst for a major sound and video installation by the leading US artist Paul Pfeiffer. Presented in a vast empty building standing in the shadow of the new stadium, and on the footprint of the original Empire Exhibition, The Saints celebrated one vital element of the stadium - the crowd.

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"We explained it as an extremely important moment, the first time that the World Cup had been broadcast live around the world. We described it to them as if we were playing a sort of time warp game and projecting this 1966 event into the future, and they were the crowd that we were projecting the game to - and then we would project their image back to 1966. We ran them through a series of rehearsals, to learn the national anthems of England and Germany and the various chants. And then we essentially filmed it in fragments and did different things to increase the excitement."

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