atopia;
Nude with Coverlet
flaying water from its stagnation
onto the palimpsest plastered walls
an atopia,
where history silently watches
the event without trace
1994 rev. 2021
Super-8mm film transferred to single channel video
with stereo sound, 3’56”
Location: 145 Bermondsey Street, London
This performance took place over an hour; unannounced and filmed by the artist, crouching in the decay of the factory floor, puddles of rain water sitting stagnant harbouring moss and fungal slime. More
Bermondsey was once the centre of leather tanning in London with a history dating back to the fifteenth century, adjacent to copious water from the River Thames, oak trees for tannin from the Great North Wood to the south, and acres of space to keep animals. The building subsequently housed a cork factory after WW2. By the early 1990s with industry in decline and the need for housing, property developers drawn by the availability of cheap space and the cachet of loft-living, made Bermondsey Street an attractive place to live and work, gentrifying the area.