After 90 years of continual fit and fix it all stopped. The factory, opened in the rush to remake Britain after the Great War then working on through Hitler’s Bombs and Thatcher’s cuts, was abandoned in 2008 leaving the factory as if it were a mausoleum. One hundred year old clamps still held together wood formed into cabinets for the latest shop to fit. Plans were still open with working sketches scrawled in the corner. Strange shaped tools were set down in mid use at day’s end as if they all thought they were coming back to work the next day. My work is a retelling of that building; its history, the work that was done there and what it became. I was drawn to the ways in which the natural world was reclaiming the space; hatched eggs resting against saw blades, hundred year old drill bits covered in pigeon down. My work focused heavily on the tension between the history and the new life crowding in. I photographed the building as it was left before to interacting with the abandoned items, turning over the tools and unrolling the blue prints. The images were printed on the worn and faded blue prints interweaving their story and function to create a new perspective on the building and the work carried out.
After 90 years of continual fit and fix it all stopped. The factory, opened in the rush to remake Britain after the Great War then working on through Hitler’s Bombs and Thatcher’s cuts, was abandoned in 2008 leaving the factory as if it were a mausoleum. One hundred year old clamps still held together wood formed into cabinets for the latest shop to fit. Plans were still open with working sketches scrawled in the corner. Strange shaped tools were set down in mid use at day’s end as if they all thought they were coming back to work the next day.
My work is a retelling of that building; its history, the work that was done there and what it became. I was drawn to the ways in which the natural world was reclaiming the space; hatched eggs resting against saw blades, hundred year old drill bits covered in pigeon down. My work focused heavily on the tension between the history and the new life crowding in. I photographed the building as it was left before to interacting with the abandoned items, turning over the tools and unrolling the blue prints. The images were printed on the worn and faded blue prints interweaving their story and function to create a new perspective on the building and the work carried out.