Power Station, 2004
Simryn Gill
Power Station, 2004
13 gelatin silver photographs, 13 type C photographs
Courtesy Albion, London & Tracy Williams Ltd, New York
Overview
"Power Station" is a series of 13 pairs of photographs recording the interiors of two buildings that have been neighbours for nearly 40 years. One is a power station and the other a residence. The oil-fuelled power station which was built in the 1960s had been recently decommissioned at the time that the photographs were taken in 2004. The residence, built in the late 1920s continues to be occupied.
I made this series of comparative photographs as a way to think about these two closed interiors which both generate different kinds of energy within them. I was also intrigued by their proximity as two very disparate structures; they literally share a fence. Over the decades they have moved from hostile cohabiting to neighbourly familiarity and now both look to the future with some uncertainty: both somewhat obsolete in their forms and their use of resources.
This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 8.
Related
Sharjah Biennial 8: Still Life, Part I
This catalogue accompanied Sharjah Biennial 8, which attempted to renegotiate the relationship between art and ecology into a system of cohabitation.
Sharjah Biennial 8: Still Life, Part II
The second book in the Still Life: Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change series, documents Sharjah Biennial 8 as it was on view.