A project commissioned by UCL as part of Trellis, which matched artists with UCL researchers for projects around the East Bank development in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Lucy Harrison and researcher Efstathia Kostopoulou (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) investigated the past industrial history of the Park and explored how this can be made more visible in the present. Using archive research and oral history interviews they mapped the site and the history of the industries that were previously there, focussing on liquids (oil, paint, perfume, and syrups) and using the waterways as a navigation. They investigated the materials and processes themselves as well as the memories of those who experienced them.
Focussing mainly on the sweet factory Clarnico and the paint factory Berger & Sons, both previously on Carpenters Road, the project culminated in an installation in the Last Drop cafe consisting of a text piece in the window mixing names of sweets, paints and plants in the Park, a publication collaging archive material and a sound piece combining text from a Berger paint catalogue and an oral history interview with a former employee. A silent film in the cafe showed BMT Print Finishers, who were previously on the site of the Olympic Park, and whose former building was photographed by Lucy in 2007 as it was being demolished.
During the exhibition the public were invited to take part in events exploring the history of the area and the current space of the Olympic Park, including a jam foraging walk and workshop with Clare Qualmann and a herbal walk and workshop with Rasheeqa Ahmad (Hedge Herbs).
Photograph by Matt Clayton.