Context and an Installation The LCC campus is approaching the end of its life, because a new building is being created for the College as part of the first stage of the new Elephant and Castle Town Centre – being developed by Delancey, as the final step in the regeneration of the area. Once vacated, the existing campus will be demolished to make way for the 2nd part of the new Town Centre. Here you can see the 2 development sites - the new LCC building is part of the East site. This image was taken before the removal of the ‘notorious’ and once-pink Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre – you can see it at the back of the shot. Its recent demolition has created the East site. In the foreground, on the West site, you can see the 4 buildings which make up the existing LCC campus, the Communal block, with the 15 storey Tower rising above it, along with the Design, Media and Workshop blocks. As you can see each, of these campus buildings have a distinct character which reflects their original function and the era of their design and construction. Having last studied at LCC during Covid and the in-person restrictions, I needed to rediscover the campus. I used walking and sensing to work with the buildings and to start to understand the characteristics of the 4 different structures, collecting images of objects and places - with their sounds and smells – which might inform the experimental work I envisage sharing. I’ve always been intrigued by the Tower, especially the unusual configuration of its staircase, so I started there. Our MA class – like students and staff before us - suffered the poor insulating qualities of its external skin and witnessed its hunger for the maintenance which kept it alive. We appreciated ‘the tower’ as an idea - and as a symbol throughout history - and noted the imperfections in how the concept had been employed in post-war reconstruction [e.g in the UK at Ronan Point - and more recently at Grenfell]. Now, surrounded by taller buildings, our modest little ‘tower’ is past its ‘sell- by- date’ and - wearing a new, colourful coat - awaits its demise. Here’s the trail I made walking a tower floor to photograph the view north from the staircase landing. As you move down the from the 14th floor to approach the Ground, the view follows you down. I photographed the view from every floor, combined the printed shots vertically as a maquette, and then photographed that installed on the tower stair My Supervisory Team had challenged me to make a ‘mini-show’ to share my research practice, so far. Here’s the way-in to the ‘un-named’’ space I found at LCC, where I had installed photographic prints, a video - and other objects - for ‘Afterlife: what’s left behind? Interrogation #1’, the results from the first few months of my enquiry. Here, you can see 5 tower-related works: the ‘maquette for 15 floors’ and below it ‘15 floors tumbled’; the ‘trail’; ‘15 floors’ – the maquette installed on the tower stair - and ‘frame’, a detail of the crittall-type window which shapes the view . The video is playing on the laptop, while on the right of this installation view you can see ‘souvenir’ and ‘memory objects’ which I’ll go on to talk about. I made all the work ‘portable’ by printing to a maximum size of A3, having sliced any larger images for reassembly in-situ. This is a screenshot from the video - ‘this is not a derivé’. I shared the rhythm of the tower, by combining the view from the staircase at every floor with the sound of footsteps on the stairs and revealed the structure’s otherwise-unseen responding vibrations. Find the video here vimeo.com/user197185908/ I’ve also made a video and a catalogue of the installation which I will be sharing with my network as a part of my continuing engagement with them. This is ‘souvenir’ –a couple of 15 x 10 cm black and white gloss prints, crumpled and presented in a 15 x 10 cm print box, with an image of the tower on the lid. It’s going to be a few years before the campus buildings can be demolished, so, after making this installation, I find myself imaging their demise on paper –especially the tower. ‘Crumpled’, is from a series where I experimented with ‘how to deconstruct a tower on paper’ which included folding, pleating, and crumpling colour prints made on tracing paper. Here’s some of the early work, made in response to the rest of the campus, which I included in the installation. I had collected images of ‘memory objects’, throughout the campus - perhaps they are items for a future ‘museum’ - and these were presented as portraits The idea of ‘memory palaces’ – spaces visualised to enable the recall of information – led to making interior landscapes which might create a strong visual response and trigger memories of that place. For the Design block, the coffered slab and the sloping glazing recall the atmosphere created by this style and era of construction. For the Workshop block, I supplemented images of the light-filled spaces with the smell from the oil-based printing inks used there. I have now started to collect the sounds of the printing machinery to add a further dimension of the atmosphere of this block. More tomorrow - 01 July 2023
Hello, I’m Natalie Robinson. I’m a photographer, with a background in architecture and redevelopment, and my work is concerned with place, memory, and disappearance, using visual and other art practices. With this occasional blog, I'm going to share the progress of my research journey with the London College of Communication (LCC) campus buildings, at Elephant and Castle, in London. It's aimed at the network of people I have met -or continue to meet- during this journey who I hope will contribute by participating in the events I intend organising to develop the research. Today, I'm outlining my project, and then - in 2 more posts which will follow on 30 June and 01 July 2023 - I’m going to describe and illustrate my work so far, as well as share the experience of making it. Afterlife - the project This campus is now approaching the end of its life because - in the next few years - the College is moving to a new site – as a key part of the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle. Made up from a series of ‘ordinary’ modernist buildings and created in a post-war spirit of optimism and renewal, the existing campus was constructed over the 40 years, between 1962 and 2003. Such buildings, unrecognized as exceptional, disappear in the continual renewal of city fabric which shapes contemporary life and yet, I believe, they have a story to tell. I’m going to tell their story through a body of practice-based work which weaves together the history of the place and the meaning it has had, for those who have studied or worked in its buildings, with the materiality of its form. The working title for my, project is ‘Afterlife: how can the existing LCC buildings make their mark?’. The research questions I am using to discover this envisage combining visual and other art practices and collaborations, with the lived experience of the building users, alongside the development and extension of my own practice. I’m in the process of enhancing my knowledge of the existing campus through searching archives, understanding the plans for relocation of the college, and meeting the wide range of people who will be involved with this endeavor over the coming years – I hope to recruit them to the network of people who will make this journey with me. I will be adding a layer of memory and experience by interviewing building users, past and present– using oral history methods. Then, through witnessing the demolition of the buildings– and the subsequent journeys of the materials from which they are made – I will reveal their physical materiality. I’m going to use the knowledge I gain to engage my network in a series of critical reflective cycles – of creating experimental work, sharing it and responding to feedback -from which I will produce the seminars, conferences and exhibitions I intend organizing to evidence my developing practice. I am situating my practice among the other artists working in the fields of place, memory, and disappearance, and I’m starting our research journey with 3 books which will stimulate different ways of thinking about matter, surface materiality and loss of place. Here they are - more tomorrow 30 June 2023! |