My studio practice explores power dynamic, in institutions - gallery and museum spaces - but also in the urban and suburban context, concentrating on the systems and authority that govern these spaces and the implications that come with it. In uncovering, cloning and reconfiguring common by-product artefacts of technocratic power structures, I aim to highlight power imbalance and struggle.
Hostile architecture is intentionally unkind, revealing a prioritisation of corporate hygiene over human need - a product of deliberate thought and design aimed at harassing and excluding the human frame in the urban setting. The geometric configuration of the pyramid has long carried connotations of strength and stability. Its tapering form is one that conveys precision, order and control, as it continues to be used as a symbol of corporate and institutional power - appearing in logos, branding and architectural design. Its form has become entwined with power and authority - a symbol of human desire for order, control, and domination.
Through specific media - installation, sculpture, light and sound - more specifically, the use of hostile architecture, I attempt to re-assemble and exaggerate urban dioramas, bringing the outside in. I use my practice to interrogate social implications of architectural design, drawing influence from artists and architects who have long challenged the status quo of urban design. I seek to integrate and build on these traditions, creating artwork that actively and simultaneously, subverts and adopts the logics of hostile architecture. By disrupting the normative functions of objects and furnishings, I attempt to highlight the harmful and absurd in concepts of authority and power, building installations that exploit the dimensional qualities of a space as a form of intervention. Making use of versatile materials - vacuform and silicone moulds, plaster of Paris, wood, paint, sound, speakers, lights and props - to create it. The intervention becomes a critique of itself - a parody, architectural sarcasm and satire.
The ‘PWR SUB GRD’ installation combines urban furnishing, specifically a surrogate electrical power substation prop, and anti-homeless design elements - 124 plaster pyramids. The familiar ‘green box’ was used to attempt to illustrate the power and privilege of those who have access to electricity - and a roof over their heads - while the hostile design epitomised the exclusion and marginalisation faced by homeless communities. The piece is also a commentary on the ongoing cost of living crisis in the UK, and the mainstream infiltration of urban graffiti and street art movements into museum and gallery spaces. As access to public space grows increasingly regulated, policed and monetised, I attempt to use my practice to draw attention to ways design is used as a tool of oppression; one built by councils to make cities less accommodating to marginalised groups, fabricating an unwelcoming urban environment for all. I seek to contribute towards a more just and equitable urban landscape, and motivate viewers to see the built environment in a new light, as a site of struggle, transformation and potential.
Le Corbusier's use of concrete and geometric form to achieve his utopian vision of functional, balanced and efficient housing facilities for the working class (machines for living) helped in establishing my politics and aesthetics. This old modernist dream failed, and was replaced by dystopia, one of cheap, plentiful, crowded social housing - one often associated with authoritarianism and exclusion. Rachel Whiteread’s use of politics and ephemeral sculptural negative space highlighted the often overlooked role of architecture in shaping complex social community relations - an aspect of her practice that inflected back into my own. Bernd and Hilla Becher’s archival and modal photography of architecture helped to recognise that the familiar and ubiquitous monuments of industry must be subverted in order to ‘inspire and advance’. Barbara Kruger, through the use of typography, showed how design could be used to challenge dominant ideologies and power structures. Jenny Holzer's public electronic signs challenged and provoked viewers with their content but also their medium, whilst highlighting the importance of accessibility - a critical concept that trickled into my own practice. Fabian Brunsing's satirical sculptures previously drew attention to the absurdity of hostile architectural design and the dangerous socio-economic underlying of it. More recently, DNCO's 2022 London exhibition about defensive design explored the ways in which architecture and urban planning is used to deter and prevent crime, while also raising social and political implications of the practice.
Hostile architecture examples here.