URBAN ALCHEMY
Urban Alchemy is an investigation into the sites and materials of demolition and the people who undertake it. It has involved residencies on active demolition sites in East London with McGees, John Hunt and Maylarch and led to a residency with East London Printmakers and a Leverhulme Trust artist/alchemist residency with UCL (University College London) Chemistry working with UCL Estates department, The Institute of Making and the demolition contractors on the UCL site.
It involves physical, artistic, collaborate experiments to create a specific ‘urban palette’ from large scale chemical etchings into roofing zinc to road rollered hoarding woodcuts and stone lithography trials on unlikely stone/concrete.
The book ‘Urban Alchemy’ contains poetics narratives of the life cycles of materials from copper to asbestos tracing their global stories as they are salvaged from conventional flows of waste and reuse.
The work has led to ongoing collaborations across science, print and making and continues to develope.
Early experiments creating an ‘urban palette’ moving from a demolition site in Stratford, East London to UCL Chemistry and where investigation into etching and pop up architecture overlapped.
