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
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