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For
years Brendan Austin has been returning to an empty building
on Boundary Road, Northwest London to investigate and record
the traces of people who used to live there. The building was
an old people's home, which was closed down despite its status
as a piece of flagship modern architecture.
Brendan has used photography and video to document the building. This
work contains traces of the former residents which are heightened by
the artefacts he has discovered on his visits: odd souvenirs such as
family photographs, hand-written notes and bus passes which have been
left behind. In the exhibition a selection of these artefacts will be
shown alongside a series of beautifully composed photographs and a video
projection.
The video work superimposes two separate pieces of footage of the same
route through the building each recorded a year apart. As the camera
passes abandoned objects and builds up a sense of the architectural space
the overall effect becomes increasingly disorientating. Corridors and
rooms overlap themselves, revealing changes that have taken place in
the structure of the building as it is prepared for refurbishment.
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