Antony Gormley at the White Cube Bermondsey

At the weekend I ventured south of the river (not my usual territory) to Maltby Street food market followed by a visit to the White Cube Bermondsey, where there was an exhibition of new works by Antony Gormley. The exhibition aims to challenge the physical possibilities of the gallery space with an ambitious larger-than-life model of his sculptures, which visitors can enter through a 'foot' and journey through its inter-connected internal chambers. Fabricated from 100 tonnes of weathering sheet steel, the work is both sculpture and building, human in form but at no point visible as a total figure. After seeing similar works of his at the White Cube in Hoxton, I was glad to see Gormley had taken it a step further and created more of an architectural intervention. The internal chambers demanded the visitor to adjust their pace and bend their bodies to its awkward heights, guided by fractions of light above. Another interesting room proved to be a space dedicated to Gormley's working models from 2002 to the present day.

The building itself is also worthy of a mention. White Cube Bermondsey is the largest of the gallery's three London sites and dates back to the 1970s when it was used as a warehouse. The building was converted into a gallery by London-based Casper Mueller Kneer Architects. The 70s dark brick block has been modernised by a white mesh canopy and a set of huge glass doors at the entrance. Inside, there are three main exhibition spaces, private viewing rooms, an auditorium, a bookshop as well as three smaller galleries, collectively known as the 'North Galleries. Internally, the gallery spaces live up to the name of 'White Cube', with white boxes and polished concrete floors. The variety of rooms proved ideal for Gormley's sculptures, the full effect of the human-proportioned silhouettes appearing as you look back down the long central corridor.

Images: White Cube

Assemble & Join: making manufacturing cool

Head over to BDonline to see an article I wrote on the Assemble & Join team in Lower Marsh, London. See it here, or read it below. The video on BDonline (filmed by @annawinston) is also well worth checking out.

Could one CNC machine finally launch the maker movement in the UK?

The maker movement has been taking America by storm. Make magazine was launched in 2005, followed by the first Maker Faire in California in 2006. It attracted 20,000 attendees, a figure that doubled the year after. And ever since, the hungry self-producing start-ups have been steadily multiplying, hammering, building and carving their way to success.

The UK has been a little slower on the uptake. But now a group of young architects and graphic designers have come together to pioneer “making”, all with one cacophonous CNC machine in a former cafe kitchen.

Sited on one of London’s last thriving independent high streets, GD/hta, Tom Tobia and Christopher Jarratt have opened a community micro-manufacturing workshop. The Assemble & Join team, sited on Lower Marsh behind Waterloo Station, will collaboratively design, manufacture and build their ideas on site with the community.

And it’s certainly shaken up the community’s curiosity. When BD visits on a typically rainy afternoon, the door is constantly opening and closing. As the CNC machine starts up its dull groan, ears prick up in the peaceful bookshop next door (despite layers of sound insulation) and the shopkeeper comes in to find out what’s going on. Everyone on Lower Marsh seems to want to know what this strange new pop-up is and how they can get involved.

The A&J team first set about refurbishing a former cafe on Lower Marsh into a temporary pop-up when they were awarded a three-month contract from Lambeth Council. Initially commissioned through a competition to design public art for the high street, A&J proposed reversing this idea and getting the community to create the art themselves. They then purchased a bespoke CNC machine from a family-run business in Devon to fit into the small galley kitchen on Lower Marsh high street.

The entrepreneurial young team includes GD/hta — a core team of graphic designers supported by architecture practice HTA — and product designer Christopher Jarratt. The team is also supported by Tom Tobia, who works as a designer, setting up community centres, designing museum exhibitions and even has the Guinness World Record for designing and building the world’s largest bee hotel. They work full-time in Assemble & Join two days a week and squeeze their day jobs around the workshop.

They now have an open-door policy, where anyone from the local community can step into the workshop to create a variety of objects, from bird boxes, Christmas trees and plant pots, to tactile shops signs, childrens’ jigsaws and small pieces of furniture. Everything is slot jointed, meaning no screws or glue, just a mallet and a bit of muscle power.

When BD visited the team, A&J was in the process of creating a death wheel for the retro clothes shop down the street, as well as bespoke flower-holders for the local flower stall. The shop was littered with handmade stools the local Coin Street art group had recently made at a workshop and small wooden mice for local school children.

Through free workshops and drop-in centres, A&J hopes to get the community absorbed in their high street and inspire them to be creative. What is great about the workshop is that it is accessible to all ages, and all skill-sets, you just need a bit of imagination. As Ben Derbyshire, managing director at HTA, told BD: “The informality of a pop-up creates an atmosphere of engagement and social interaction that really lifts the spirit.”

Images: Assemble & Join

Secret Cinema: The State of Oak Hampton

On Sunday night, I headed down to Bethnal Green Library dressed as a 1940's money lender. Not your usual quite night in, nor your usual cinema trip. This was for Secret Cinema, where a mystery film is screened at a mystery location, and where the audience takes as much a part in the performance as the actors. I can't tell you much more than that, I'm sworn to secrecy, its not called Secret Cinema for nothing... But I can give you a little clue, the 19th Secret Cinema, or the 'State of Oak Hampton', warn of a storm coming, and say they will "clamp down on vicious crimes through investigation and punish the thought as well as the offense. The State will also fund a meteorological station headquartered somewhere in London to trace the skies and bring daily reports to our contenders and offenders”. Secret Cinema is a total immersive experience, and one that has proved extremely popular- the last screening of Prometheus attracted over 25,000 eager film fans. It's expensive but you'll never forget your evening of laughter, humiliation, fear and delight.

Tim Walker: Story Teller at Somerset House

I have long admired the photography of Tim Walker, many would curse me for ripping out pages of my beloved Vogues, but some of his images were just too great to stay in the folds of a magazine, and had to take pride of place on my bedroom walls. So I was super excited when Somerset House announced an exhibition of his photography, sponsored by Mulberry. The exhibition itself certainly didn't disappoint, not only was it free admission, the rooms were extensive and well laid out. They were also as visually exciting as his photography, larger-than-life props complimented the framed photos, from giant grotesque dolls and clown puppets, to huge snails and detailed insects with delicate, transparent wings.

The extraordinary photographs in the exhibition are drawn from the pages of the world's glossy magazines: British, French, American and Italian Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and The New Yorker. With the addition of an interesting behind-the-scenes video, the exhibition showed me just how extensive the production of his photography is. It is less like a fashion shoot and more like a film set- there are hair and make-up artists, fashion stylists and costume fitters, model makers, set designers, builders, producers and painters, prop suppliers and that is just the beginning. He claims the camera "is simply a box put between you and what you want to capture". But there you have Walker at the centre of it all, among all this creative noise, creating unique, fantastical images that go beyond fashion and the clothes the model is wearing.

Images: Tim Walker

LN-CC: London Night Chameleon Cafe, Dalston

Behind a non-descript door off Shacklewell Lane in Dalston, lies a fashion maven's grotto. Designed by set designer Gary Card, the LN-CC concept store space acts as a evolving platform for curated ideas that encompass menswear, womenswear, music, and books. Walk down an obsolete alley and some even more mysterious stairs, and you come to a hidden, fantastical and surreal space. The store consists of three product rooms, a library, a record store and a club space for private events. These spaces are all arranged around a dimly-lit orange tunnel, clad in offcuts of wood- part future spaceship, part childrens treehouse. In the product rooms you can find the likes of J.W Anderson, Dries Van Noten, and Haider Ackermann.

The store operates on an appointment-only basis.

(Thanks to @olivierlegris)

Images: LN-CC

Maison Martin Margiela with H&M launch party

Last night saw the launch of the much-anticipated H&M with Maison Martin Margiela collection. I headed down to Regent Street to suss it out, thanks to an invitation from British Vogue. I was prepared to get my elbows ready!
It turned out to be a surprisingly sophisticated affair, with beautiful waiters passing around endless champagne, white chocolate and raspberry sorbet lollipops, as well as stock replenishments. The most popular items seemed to be the Perspex-heeled shoes, shiny pink sweet-wrapper clutch bags and tailored jackets. The super cosy cream duvet coat stood stoically on the rack, many shoppers deterred by the steep price. For myself, it was a classic black tailored jacket that made its way into my shopping basket.