Canary Wharf ResidencyI was among a group of artists selected to take part in a residency at Canary Wharf New District (cwndartistresidency.wixsite.com/artists) in July-August 2018. It was based at the Wood Wharf project, a large site being developed for residential / mixed use adjacent to the main Canary Wharf site. My areas of interest included: the colour yellow, inspired by both the eponymous canary and the use of yellow on the building site to denote hazards; reflections in the water around Canary Wharf and on buildings; the way the construction workers moved around the site; the language of control used in the Canary Wharf environment; the contrast between the raw structures and the finished apartments.
'Risks' Prints The risk series of prints took inspiration from a list of risks in the construction industry published by the Health and Safety Executive. The photo-litho printing plates are based on details from photographs and film taken by me on the building site, with the addition of the 'risk' words and patches of colour added by chine collé (pre-glued paper) when the plate is run through the press. |
'A1' Etchings The A1 series of etchings were based on views from the tower marked as A1 on the CWND site plan, otherwise known as One Park Drive. They show the neighbouring tower under construction, with the railings of temporary safety barriers in the foreground. The paper chine collé added during the printing process includes fragments of architectural and interiors photographs from magazines. |
'One Park Drive' Paintings This group of paintings relates to the most prestigious building on the site, One Park Drive. They focus on the raw interiors before fit-out begins, and are painted on aluminium, a metal commonly employed in the construction of buildings. The language used in the titles reflects the typically hyperbolic marketing materials for the finished apartments. |
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Blue Route from Morna Hinton on Vimeo. |
'Blue Route - Best Foot Forward' One of the things that struck me about the building site was the constant movement of workers, especially along the Blue Route, which is the safe walking route to and from the construction areas. I deliberately filmed people from the neck down as I didn't want to get into issues with using identifiable individuals. Also, the striding feet and bodies clad in hi-vis have an interesting design quality. I emphasised this by using split screen and vertical/horizontal flips. Snippets of speech captured when filming were edited in to underscore both the camaraderie and also the multi-national nature of this type of work. |
'Health & Safety' Paintings The Health & Safety Series was the first group of paintings developed following the residency. These small-scale works are on wooden panels, with raw pine edges, which references construction materials. They grew out of my obsession with the colour yellow, which was everywhere on the building site. I liked the way that any potential hazard was simply sprayed yellow in a very casual way that could look rather beautiful alongside the other regulation colours of red, blue and orange. The titles were gleaned from various health and safety related signage around the site. |
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