At the end of 2016 I saw an advertised open call online for the first ever Artist in Residence at Tower Bridge.  The advertisement sought an artist to work in residence, engaging with staff, visitors and communities in the creation of a series of workshops and original contemporary artworks for display in the unusual and arresting spaces of Tower Bridge itself.

Over several days I dedicated myself in the preparation of my application, using it as an opportunity to synthesise ideas currently within my practice that explore (dis)appearances, contradictions, indeterminacy and infrastructural pattern within built environments.

As a visual artist my work explores the intersections between drawing, performance and engagement practices and I have shown work within galleries in the UK in both solo and group shows since 2011.  My pen on paper drawings depict sprawling morphological cityscapes in painstaking detail with my latest works engaging with interdisciplinary theories surrounding emergence, systems, cybernetics and urbanism.  My concurrent engagement practice uses drawing, making, film and performance practices as methods of engaging communities in dialogue with each other, their environment and their creative wellbeing.  This work has often taken place in partnership with heritage and cultural organisations resulting in site-specific performances, films, events and artworks which explore our relationships to spaces and places as they evolve and pass through time.

For my application to the residency I put forward my case for engaging with the Bridge and its communities by addressing one of the six key points for their interpretation strategy:

“Beauty or beast, Tower Bridge is a living showpiece of Victorian art and architecture…”

I proposed to the selection panel a residency which developed themes of appearance and disguise within my practice to explore how the Bridge embodies architectural notions of the Sublime through simulation, appropriation and cultural aesthetic value.  I hope to explore narratives of authenticity and contradiction whilst celebrating the ingenuity of the Bridge’s designers and engineers.  Much of my engagement with the space will be looking at contemporary and historical understandings of the Sublime and relating this to the Bridge’s unique architectural value – I’m excited to see how this will converse with my existing body of work and communicate to wider contemporary art and architecture networks.

With my application checked and checked again, I submitted just before the deadline and straightaway put it to the back of my mind.  Over the years I have got better and better at believing and at once unbelieving; balancing my hopes for success and fears of failure with the consolation that through the application process at least I learnt something new about the Bridge whilst also re-writing my artist statement (an accomplishment within itself).

Fast forward a couple of weeks and witness me sitting in the Tower Bridge offices, nervously awaiting my interview with various Heads of Departments as one of the shortlisted artists who had reached the final stage of the process.  The interview was more of a discussion into my art making process and the philosophy behind my engagement work, encompassing previous highlights within my career and giving space to imagine what might come from the luxury of the residency’s time and budget.  I left the interview and walked back over the bridge admiring its robust architectural features, wondering if I could ever capture the monumental scale of the structure or get used to the endless trail of tourists that flock to the Bridge everyday to take selfies.

It was an agonising wait until I received the exciting news that my proposal had been successful and that I had been chosen as the first ever Artist in Residence at Tower Bridge.  Its not a everyday that as an artist I am so tangibly believed in, seen as valuable, offered residency, selected for an opportunity with so much seeming magnitude: after all the Bridge is not just a historic site, it is a national icon, a global symbol of London and the United Kingdom.  It’s shape and silhouette used on countless surfaces, emblazoned into people’s consciousnesses all over the world… it even featured in the Spice Girls movie and in 2016 it was the most geotagged location in the UK!  The monumental task ahead of me had not gone unnoticed and I spent a couple of weeks in shock, grappling with the now beastly proposition of responding to this monument.

Since receiving the news though I have gratefully been involved in a seemingly unending series of lists, meetings, conversations and operational tasks to complete in collaboration with the staff at the Bridge.  Concentrating on the more organisational aspects has allowed me the chance to adjust and settle into the role and now I’m starting to get my head around the responsibility ahead of me, discovering ways in which I can develop new works within the timeframe and learning to enjoy the residency rather than be subsumed by the overwhelming feelings of responsibility and awe.

The team at the Bridge have all been extremely welcoming from all stratas of the organisation, showing genuine curiosity for my work and the insights that I might offer them about their beloved Bridge.  I have been immediately struck by the passion, interest and dedication of the staff to act as guardians of the Bridge; the responsibility is shared by everyone here to tell the story.  As the Artist in Residence I have my particular insight and experience to offer but it will only flourish if I enter into a true dialogue with the organisation and the people who occupy the space everyday.  The opportunity to make art at the Bridge has also become an opportunity to inhabit the organisational space of the building and collaborate with a team of people who are truly enthusiastic about the potential of the artworks that I will create and co-create with the community.  There is an audience within the Bridge and they are certainly willing and ready for me to challenge, engage, support and reflect back to them an image of themselves.

I now have a studio set up within the steel and concrete structure of the South Tower and have started to occupy the building and its surroundings on a more daily basis, imagining, interpreting and dreaming of intervening.  In the 123 year history of the structure there has never been an artist in residence and so I am part of establishing its philosophy, practice and operational function.  I get to address the residency as an extension of my practice whilst also imagining the needs and desires of the many lucky artists who will follow me within the scheme.

In my more contemplative moments throughout all the operational and organisational madness of the last couple of weeks I have however, managed to take a number of opportunities to sit and simply look at the Bridge.  This is how I know my creative process is truly beginning – my eyes are feasting upon the details, shapes, structures and follies of this magisterial experiment in architectural engineering.  I have started to imagine the Bridge as a conceptual space – as a place which I am working within, alongside and in opposition to – My thoughts on the Bridge have started to become engaged and embodied and I can’t wait to see where it will all lead me as I work through to the exhibition of outcomes later in the year.

With the Shard to the South and the skyscrapers of the City of London to the North, it is flanked by London’s current symbols of financial supremacy.  These skyscrapers – and their symbolic power – have only been made possible by the connection between North and South that the Bridge has facilitated over the years.  At night the Bridge rises, bathed in blue and purple light with a monumental out-of-this-world presence.  Over the last couple of weeks I have found myself washed up on the banks of the Thames staring upward and beyond to this incredible structure – in thrall to the opportunity ahead of me and pinching myself as I soak it all in.  The smile on my face is as immediate as when I first received the good news of this residency and though a butterflies persists in tickling the pit of my stomach, I am learning to relax into the experience and gain ownership of this unique project.  I am filled with excitement and hope for this residency, fuelled by enthusiasm for my emerging partnership with the Bridge and encouraged by the fact that I can now dare to dream on a scale I would never have previously imagined or believed possible.

Over the next few months this blog will provide me with a place to grapple with some of the language and complexities of written word within my process.  It will be nice to share with you some of the research that I have been undertaking and possibly get your reflections and insights on what it means to respond to architectural relics in this way.  Thank you for reading if you got this far, any questions, comments or observations are of course very welcome!

Alex

Website: www.alexanderevans.net

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @alexevansart

Twitter: @evansalexevans

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