No Work Shown

Down in London town, stretched out under a bend in The Thames, lies a stack of concrete rectangles, lines, circles and elevations. Set against the dirty white of the clouds and the brownish-blue waters of the river, the grey tangle rises into a sprawl of low-rise buildings. One of these stubby buildings is the immense Hayward Gallery.

Just like the jumble of disconnected shapes outside, the rooms and the corridors of The Hayward run together in a way that make no sense. Yet, somehow, they also fall in perfect order. Angles form and shift in front of you as you walk along. You never quite know if you are walking into or out of a room. At times, sunlight pours in from random cutouts above your head. At other times, dark corners draw you in like you're locked down under the earth in a fall-out shelter.

Never The Stories I Don't Wanna Tell

Above her bed was a large ceiling fan. An expansive thing that moved very little air.

Her bedroom was a square room, up in an attic. Down below it, a living room led to a kitchen and in between that was a curved, stucco archway. Stepping under the archway - and leaning up against the wall for support - you'd climb a thin, L-shaped, pine stairway and step through the peeling, rouge door.

And the fan was the first thing you noticed.

You couldn't help but notice it.

It extended out across the ceiling, reaching all the way to each the wall. Four, dense, wooden blades curved in a sorta S-swirl to their end point. A dark and aged gloss shone off each blade, reflecting the sunlight pouring in through the small window. The tips were gilded in faded brass.

She told me that the fan was actually a propeller. A wooden propeller off a World War One fighter plane. She did not know how it got up there into her little hiding place from the world. She was renting and never bothered to inquire with the landlord.