London 2050.
The city is a
peaceful, orderly, clean space with beautiful houses and green spaces.
The reason for this is that the majority of
its former inhabitants now live in monolithic tower blocks ringed around the
outskirts, able only to view their former dwelling from a distance through what
are known as ‘aspiration windows’.
My proposal is to present my work as
an exhibition, with framed photographs and an interactive installation piece.
The exhibition will include these three (connected)
elements.
Interiors of people’s
homes, as they live in the vast tower blocks.
The portraits will be posed in front of windows which
overlook from on high the city of London in the distance. They will give some
clues to the quality of life and the surprising diversity of people who,
despite being ‘Londoners’, can no longer afford to live inside their city.
Exteriors, taken from
the viewpoint of London, showing these monolithic structures on the outskirts.
They perpetually loom on the horizons, a constant reminder
to those whose income falls short that they are not immune to being shipped out
to the outskirts.
The installation
piece will be a model of London, flat and whitewashed, with disproportionately
huge residential tower blocks ringing the outskirts.
These tower blocks will be hollow inside and have the back
walls missing, so that viewers can place their faces in the hollows and peer
through the windows at the city of London inside the ringed cordon. This will
be the only way to view the city, as the tower blocks will be so close together
that only very few glimpses of London will be possible.
As the model tower blocks form a ring, viewers will see the
eyes of other viewers through windows of buildings opposite, creating an
amusing and eerie spectacle of a community united in its rejection.
The idea is to create both a voyeuristic and isolated
viewpoint, empathising with those unfortunate enough to live in the structures.
Sketches, Dominik Klimowski
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| I took this photograph of what was once a council block in Acton which a friend of mine lived. They are being torn down to make way for more expensive privately rented flats. The council tenants will be relocated to Northolt, 8 miles away in the direction of the outskirts of London. |
