Installation artwork: 10cm handmade tiles / 10cm domestic tiles / 10cm Industrial tiles/ Iron oxide Grout / Adhesive / Ply wood / screws / industrial floor tape / Convex mirror / Paint
Completed: 7/ 6 / 2025
Location: Corridor space between A and B block of Chelsea UAL building.
In a city that prioritises speed, profit, and surface-level renewal, the installation takes on the language of the underground commuter tunnel: functional, sterile, and efficient. But the decay of its façade and dirty marks we leave on its surfaces - question how commuters and artists might reclaim space in a city that is increasingly difficult to survive in.
The materials used are key to the message. Blue and white ceramic tiles echo historical traditions of storytelling with ceramic objects and artefacts. But here they speak of sweat and struggle — the cost of living and working in London in 2025, and its no so glamorous commute beneath the streets. Iron oxide pigment in the grout is the same pollutant found in the air we breathe on our way to and from work: a by-product of the city’s relentless movement. These materials symbolise the complicit consequences of 'regeneration' projects: non places, exhaustion, and displacement of community's.
Publication which was availabe on the night of the Private view - ' an un-nostalgic postcard home?'
Here the politics of public space can be felt rather than ignored, exposing the hidden pressures of urban life — not with nostalgia, but with the dirt we leave behind and quiet resistance of still being here.
The space was deliberately chosen to be in a walkway, somewhere people were not supposed to stop. A mirroring of how we use London underground platforms in both its motifs and in action. This disruption to the minimalism and clinical nature of the passageway is a disruption for the intention of the space and non place like quality's. It suggests perhaps art in non places can lend itself to disrupting the 24/7 of the city.
Please feel free to get in touch regarding this work. Also please get in touch if you would be interested in collaborating in future work and exhibitions.
Email: patsystow@gmail.com
Instagram: patsystow_studio
