June 2007 / May 2008
Photographs by Paul Thomas
Texts by Mark C. Hewitt
Two collaborative exhibitions with images by photographer Paul Thomas and text by myself responding to the beautiful and frightening interiors of the redundant Shoreham Cement Works in West Sussex.
Exhibitions and events
June 2007: thirtyfive-a gallery, Brighton, as part of Architecture Week South East with commissioned audio descriptions by artist Rachel Gadsden. Accompanying event at Ropetackle Centre, Shoreham, as part of Adur Festival 2007.
May 2008: Chatfields, Steyning. Exhibition as part of Steyning Festival 2008 / architecture08. Accompanying talk in gallery.
TEXT IV
A small ugly square building on the edge of the main block. I’m looking in through a gloriously rusted metal window frame. Light seaps in through windows in the north wall. The rust round the window frame black. It has eaten deep into the metal. Cracked cream paint. Metal grids are bound to the frame with twists of electric cable. A few jags of glass are still left in the frame, most are lost. Peering inside, I see a squarish room built around a framework of girders with one central pillar. A raised floor cut with thinnish deep channels, maybe three foot deep. Chalked letters along the wall of one channel: 6A, 7A, 8A, 9A, 10A, 11A, 12A. Smell of cement dust. More than a smell, you have it in your throat. Must have been thick in the air once. Some sort of technical instrument lying on its side. Light blue-green metal cabinet-thing with sixties-style metal handle to open and close the doors. Three gauges, each with a dial beneath, on a control panel above the cabinet. Black wires and pipes snaking round the floor, one of which is draped over the instrument. Wires and fuseboxes line the walls. All manner of detritus: bits of metal and unidentified tools. On the south wall, in the familiar style of the graffiti art, the head and shoulders of a figure in green hoodie and yellow baseball cap, face left blank. On a central pillar, in black felt tip, a crude cross or dagger-shape and the word CARTER, underlined.