"Stitched Offices" by Sally Buchanan

Last week marked the closing of Electric House, the temporary venue for BAR (Brent Artists Resource, northwest London). Months ago the local council ousted BAR - and the borough's largest library - from a perfectly functional building, which is now to be razed and rebuilt as council offices. In a further crazy decision, the council will be demolishing this 1930s structure too, further demeaning the struggle for community and amenity in Willesden Green.

These are troubled times - stringent times - and that's likely to lead, among all the power struggles, to strange decisions. It's kinda like the 60s, which of course had a different financial climate, when everything "old" was being torn down, to be replaced by Brave New Concrete. (And look at it now...)

But a rant isn't the reason for this post, it's to show you the installation by Sally Buchanan in a suite of offices at the rear of the building - the vacant offices of the CEO, his secretary, and the Managing Director, now with bricked-up windows and missing doors.

Sally has interconnected - with "lines of power" - these offices. Over several weeks, she's used linen thread in various configurations, and in the half hour during the closing party that people were allowed to access this floor of the building, they made the most of it.

This is where the Managing Director's desk was

... leading towards the secretary's office

The secretary's office

A corner of the CEO's office

Role play in the CEO's office

See Sally's "Gladstone Meadow Cut", made with a domestic lawnmower and maintained since 2010, here.