The Installation

SASHA BOWLES
77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

Video of installation

Entering the Dark Room 

 

Inside the Darkroom

 

 

Some of the rooms

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

Some of the 40 rooms

Tropical loo

Upstairs 2nd floor back 79

Print room

Dark room 1st floor 79

2nd floor back 79

Front room 2nd floor 77

 

Lights

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

There are 82 light fittings

 

 

Items left behind

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

 

Some of the items left in the rooms.

Baby Belling

Comode

Light

Lamp shade

Mattress

 

Documentation

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

 

Some of the documentation envelopes containing souvenirs

Textured wallpaper from below dado rail
Entrance into 79 Southern Row W10 5AL

Red and black geometric carpet
Small white insect(moth?)
Front room left, 79

Note on square paper
Back room left, 79

 

Large nut and bolt. Do not fit together
Back room left, used for the production of scientific equipment

 

The Project

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

On entering the dilapidated houses of 77-79 Southern Row W10; I was immeadiately inspired to document as much as I could. The plan was for a group of artists to respond to the buildings before their sale a mere 2 weeks later. The houses are very run down and reek of recent neglect. There is very little left of the original contents, but what is left resonated the former residents and their businesses.

I spent 2 days photographing every room/space, of which there are 40, and I then took something from that room as a momento or physical evidence. Something small, such as a piece of carpet, wallpaper, plaster or tiny light bulb. I was begining to feel like an archeologist piecing together clues.

Each room photograph was then printed onto a small envelope, (many of which were found in the house), the momento was placed inside and then I wrote the date of photo, what was inside and the room it was taken from on the front of the envelope.

The house of 79 contained a photographic darkroom, which struck me as the ideal place to make my installation. Whilst documenting the house I came across a room that had been papered with xerox copies of prints, from the print business. Many layered and beautiful in their juxaposition of images; one image stood out in particular. It was the face of a young girl. I have no idea of who this girl is, but her image was striking. She became the focus of my installation.

Who's that girl?

Background

SASHA BOWLES

77-79 SOUTHERN ROW

 

 

The adjoining houses at 77-79 Southern Row

were acquired in 1979 by two scientists,

Alek Groszek and Charles Templer. Since

then, they have housed a research and

scientific equipment manufacturer, Microsal

 Ltd, making precision instruments, a

printmaking and papermaking business, the

Nautilus Press run by Jane Reece. Once a

slum, now a trendy neighbourhood, these

Victorian terraces are soon to be

demolished. Shorn of their original contents

(some sold to form Book Arts Trust in Hackney

 Wick), their rooms a maze of 70's decor and

industrial detrius, they tell a fascinating

story.

Alek Groszek's invention, the

Microcalorimeter, measures heat exchanges at

the surfaces of things. Invented in the

1960's it is still used in research and

development facilities all over the world,

and his later research has convinced him of

the possibility of creating a new form of

energy. Inspired by this dynamic 85 year old,

these buildings are now, albeit briefly, a

catalyst for artistic exchange generating a

new and different form of heat.