Figures on the Foreshore. Digital site-responsive photographic installation commissioned by the Thames Tideway 'Art on the Tideway' project.
- Submitting institution
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University of Wales Trinity Saint David / Prifysgol Cymru Y Drindod Dewi Sant
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-TD1
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Nine Elms Lane, Battersea, London
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of production
- September
- Year of production
- 2015
- URL
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https://www.tideway.london/benefits/art-on-the-tideway/temporary-commissions/tim-davies/
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- In 2015 Davies was amongst leading contemporary artists commissioned to produce a temporary public artwork for the Art on the Tideway project to meaningfully connect with London’s past and future during the tunnel’s construction. His research question was how to produce a temporary artwork at a very large scale exploring the cultural meanings and social relations of the site, while engaging with the local community and those visiting the area. Davies’ work concentrated on the proximity of the river to the site designated for the art work and explored ways of celebrating the economic and recreational value of the Thames to communities historically and contemporaneously. Two separate groups volunteered to take part in the performative actions during two days of musical processions. The photographs caught the movement of the camera and figures playing musical instruments, informed by Eadweard Muybridge’s stop-motion photographs. These photographic stills were subsequently reproduced at large scale to form a very large frieze which was and installed as a hoarding alongside the Thames Tideway Tunnel construction work. This practice-based research built on earlier projects investigating what Soja (2010) terms ‘real and imagined places’ and drawing on de Certeau’s theory that ‘space is a practised space’ (2002). Caitlin Davies’ contemporaneous publication Downstream (2015) provided useful socio-historical information and contact was made with local residents, including those living in houseboats behind Nine Elms Lane, and workers from Tideway. The work connects London’s past and future as the tunnel is built, conveying notions of contemplation, imagination and a sense of fun, whilst celebrating the proximity of the river and the fragmented landscape as background. The resulting ‘movement’ creates an engaging intervention for the city’s diverse audiences. Dissemination: Installed September 2015, still on show (as of October 2020).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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