On May 24, 2004, Hackney-based artists Caroline Christie and Bobby Lloyd peered out of their windows and saw smoke rising on the horizon.
Since 2003, the pair had been photographing the changing landscape in the Lower Lea Valley, earmarked for development and now the site for the 2012 Olympics. The smoke proved to be not without fire and they were able to capture stunning images of the aftermath of the ‘Britart’ fire, in which an important chunk of the nation’s modern art collection was destroyed.
Their work will go on show at SPACE from May 3 to June 23, and will feature photographs of the debris and those charting the fall and rise of a once familiar area of old London as it is transformed into the gleaming phoenix that will be the 2012 Olympic site.
The exhibition also offers an open-air, scale model of the Olympic site in the form of a sandpit – and a video installation showing how visitors change the landscape of the sandpit, using tools provided.
Both artists have a background in art therapy for children and have worked in refugee camps in war zones such as Bosnia and Kosovo. They formed On Site Arts in 2004 and have now forged a close relationship with one of the Olympic site’s main building contractors, J.Murphy & Sons, who sponsored and installed the exhibition’s sandpit.
Lloyd told Arts Hub she feels that, through their work with displaced communities, they are able to articulate the “ambivalence” many people feel at losing the familiar Lea Valley landscape – she herself greeted news of the scheme with both “outrage and excitement”.
However, the pair maintain an independent eye. Lloyd admits to being attracted to “the edgy quality of rubble” and this fascination also drew them to the ruins of the Britart fire. Originally, the site was cordoned off, but Christie and Lloyd were later granted access by the demolition company.
The stash of artefacts had been in the care of specialist art handling company Momart Ltd. – the fire was deemed to have been started deliberately after a burglary on the industrial estate where Momart had its warehouse.
The destruction of many important pieces from the 1950s onwards – including work by Patrick Heron, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin – was regarded by many as a tragic and profound loss to our national culture. Since then, we have seen other tragedies and triumphs – sometimes going hand in hand.
Lloyd points out that the fire coincided with the beginning of “horrific things” happening in Iraq and sees the emotional fallout as “a metaphoric loss”. (If we felt relief as Saddam’s statue fell, we were devastated when our own icons crashed and burned in a lockup in Leytonstone one year later.)
Certainly, 2004 was a time of hope and upheaval: the fire erupted against the backdrop of the Thames Gateway regeneration scheme, the Olympic bid, London’s mayoral elections in June 2004 – and the run up to the US Presidential Election in November 2004 and Britain’s General Election in May 2005, as well as Iraq.
Coincidentally, on the day of the fire, President Bush unveiled a draft UN resolution, co-sponsored by Britain, that would give UN approval to a new Iraqi government and a multinational peacekeeping force. In Iraq, two British civilians and two American servicemen were killed. These were the headlines that accompanied news of the Britart fire. And one year later – the day after the jubilant announcement of London’s successful Olympic bid – another burning pile of twisted wreckage lay across the capital as the July 7 bombs went off.
Lloyd and Christie do not deliberately pursue a political agenda, but accept that the nature of their community-based art is likely to reflect such issues.
It was their aim to explore the geographical, emotional and metaphorical landscapes of the controversial sites featured in the exhibition – and the charred ruins of the Momart warehouse and its haul of terrible beauty could not only be seen as prophetic, but an apt metaphor for the images we see daily on our TV screens.
In the current climate, the success of On Site Arts in securing 100 per cent funding might be the envy of other organisations – especially in the light of recent announcements by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that will see Arts Council England lose £112.5 million from its Lottery pot after 2009, as money is diverted to the Olympic budget.
Arts leaders such as National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner and Jude Kelly – artistic director of the South Bank and chair of culture and education at London 2012 – are among those who have called for a Commons debate on the cuts. They have also hit out at the apparent lack of a plan to fund and implement the programme of cultural events mooted under the Cultural Olympiad.
The DCMS, however, told Arts Hub that it was too early to reveal the specific national and regional arts programmes that will be established to coincide with the Olympics – these will only be unveiled after the 2008 Beijing Olympics have folded.
The DCMS also added that a public financial package for the programme “had never been agreed to” and it was hoped that private funding would be secured – meaning that many arts companies could find themselves going for gold to the business sector.
Next year, SPACE will celebrate 40 years of providing affordable studios for artists. The organisation now provides units for 600 artists at its flagship building in Mare Street, Hackney and across London. Chief Executive of SPACE Anna Harding remains resolute about the organisation’s future, despite the challenges: “Arts practice is constantly changing and SPACE will continue to respond to artists’ needs,” she told Arts Hub.
And although no birthday party has yet been planned, SPACE will “mark its achievements”. An AHRC funded PhD studentship at Birkbeck College is being awarded from 2007 to 2010 and will cover the first archival analysis of SPACE and its history.
Similarly, as the diggers get ever busier and the Olympic site is cordoned off from the public, Christie and Lloyd will continue their documentary of the changing landscape – and may venture deep underground to shoot the tunnels and pylons shaping the subterranean landscape of the new Olympic Village.
Let’s hope they are the only artists going underground in the bid to dig for victory and go for gold.
Painted Deserts – Changing London Landscape runs at SPACE from May 3 to June 23.
Visitors will be able to dig for victory in the sandpit every Saturday.
Opening hours: Monday to Friday: 10am to 5pm
Saturday: 12pm to 4pm
Olympic Artists’ Symposium
Saturday, June 23, 10am to 4pm
SPACE 129-131 Mare, Street, London E8 3RH
For info/to apply for the AHRC funded PhD Studentship (within the scope of urban regeneration, arts and community), contact Elaine Kitteringham e.kitteringham@bbk.ac.uk. The closing date for applications is 1 June 2007.
