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16 June to 25 June 2006
Smithfield Car Park, West Smithfield, London, EC1A 9PQ.
A collaboration between filmmaker Emliy Richardson
and author and poet Iain Sinclair, Transit journeys through the East End
quietly observing the shifting architectural and social landscape. Underneath
Smithfield Market, at a juncture where the past encroaches upon the modern
world, a two storey car park occupying a former underground meat depot
is transformed into a projection space incorporating the only remaining
row of the original high arched vaults.
Iain Sinclair provides pieces of a labyrinthine
narrative through the soundtrack, from which the viewer can navigate these
landscapes in transition.
The show was accompanied by a new short story
by Barry Sutton and an exhibition about the history of the building.
Transit was commissioned by Measure and featured
as part of the 2006 London Architecture Biennale and Architecture Week.
With Special Thanks to:
Iain Sinclair
Lucy Harris
Jonah Fox
Sam Abelman
Hortense Suleyman
Robin Kirsten
Mites
Measure wishes to thank Deborah Gay and all at Smithfield Market, our
volunteers and everyone who came to see the show.
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Below are some notes on the process we went through to make
Transit.
Transit was first discussed in the winter of 2005. We had worked with
Emily on the
‘Lights On’ show in 2002, and her film became one of the
key pieces of work in that show that tied the other elements of the exhibition
together. After being invited by the London Architecture Biennale to become
involved once again after our successful collaboration in 2004, we started
looking for venues in West Smithfield with Emily in mind for the project.
Our decision this year to focus on solo shows has enabled us to work closely
with our artists and develop the concept of the exhibition over a period
of time suitable for a project of this scale.
After a period of research and exploration of the area, we found a row
of original vault arches underneath the Smithfield Market. They formed
the basis of new discussions and meetings as to how we could work from
them as an inspirational starting point for the project. Emily had talked
about a new film, as yet untitled focusing on the dramatic and sometimes
subtle but definite changes taking place specifically in the East End.
She had been documenting and noting these over the past year, shops closing,
buildings being destroyed and the new rising amongst the old. Changes
can happen fast especially in London we lose buildings so often that after
the dust has settled it’s sometimes hard to remember what was there.
These themes became the beginning of Transit, although Emily wanted to
delve deeper into the myths and tales that wrap the streets, especially
in Smithfield.
Our research into the history of the area began with visits to the London
Metropolitan Archives, Smithfields own archive and going to meet and talk
to people who have worked at the market for many years. Web based research
was also carried out and we found many written first hand descriptions
of Smithfields which were eventually compiled and edited for the info-display
posters at the show. With ‘Mementoes…”
our original collaboration with the Biennale in 2004 we had first
used an audio interview as part of the history of the building.
For Transit we wanted to continue with this method, we liked the connotations
of storytelling and the emotive nature of how and what was being spoken
of. As the ideas of for the film developed and Emily started filming test
shots, the film had begun to resemble a modern psycho-geographic street
walk. Iain Sinclair’s ‘Lights out for the Territory’
walks and observations around London published in 1994, has long been
a favourite book, and we approached him about possible involvement. After
meeting Iain in a local pub for a few drinks, he said could add a narrative
audio track to the film by way of an interview with Emily.
Iain’s involvement and the rich audio material he had given Emily
changed the way she imagined the film. Rather than clips of audio mixed
up with street sounds as she had originally intended, she edited the interview
with Iain into three hypnotic narrative passages and matched them to her
equally hypnotic street travelling tracking shots. The film was always
imagined as a three-screen projection. The arches were perfect for the
format and we designed the construction of the screens to fill the open
spaces into the carpark. The effect was to almost create an experience
of time travel, walking from a modern neon lit car-park into a row of
hidden dark Victorian arched vaults with the only light coming from the
film itself.
 
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