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UNDERFLOW


A permanent public commission for UCL

Three works created for the new Dementia Research Institute on Gray's Inn Road

 

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In this commission Underflow, the subterranean River Fleet, which flows beneath the site, is explored materially and conceptually in collaboration with archaeologists, geologists, AI-developers, climate-geographers and neurologists. Revealing and reimagining it through a lens of circularity, connection and transformation. Underflow celebrates the enduring association between water and healthcare in this place, while re-establishing the connection between the body and landscape: our inner bloodstreams and the rivers around us. The three artworks for the building will depict tools for discovery, echoing pioneering neurological research. 
 











   Uranographia Britannica, Chatsworth Estate, Devonshire Collections / Stained Glass sample of Laertes' Atlas, Freya

Laertes’ Atlas celebrates past scientific developments alongside today's cutting-edge research. The Atlas is formed of 12 light-boxes, housing individual stained-glass drawings depicting areas of ground found above the River Fleet. Different on each encounter, each 'window' will be lit by the light of a single day from one of twelve locations around the world, spanning the calendar year. A new form of map for the site that looks beyond the surface. It responds to the Uranographia Britannica, the celestial atlas created by Dr John Bevis, an astronomer and physician, who found the spring waters feeding the River Fleet to have health giving properties, turning this site into one of the most popular spas of the 1700’s, Bagnigge Wells.  












  Geological chalk core excavated from 35m below ground/John Mitchell's clod of earth from the lowest site excavation 

Furtive Ground directly responds to the materiality of the place. Magnetite and calcium – both compounds found in the human brain and the site’s excavated ground – will be suspended through the building, the magnetite becoming a compass; always finding magnetic north. The compass will be created from two individual cast clods of earth, excavated by hand from the lowest depth of the building by the two site foreman, John O'Connor, and John Mitchell.













                 Neurological cell slide image - University College London Queens Square Institute of Neurology                   Downstream, is an ephemeral and collaborative endeavour, created to be embedded in the lowest part of the building. A participatory, unfolding sound work for the MRI suite, it will reform field-recordings from the archives of the nearby British Library’s ‘Water Library’ inviting visitors to take a journey through other people’s memories of water, accumulating as a collective woven river of sound. Co-created with a neuroscientist Oliver Hayes and Holistic AI developer, Zekun Wu.

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