Scar tissue: A sculpture created for no man's land
a conceptual live art performance event across the London Underground & Disused Eurostar Terminal at Waterloo Mainline
Remembrance Day Sunday, 11th November 2012
Sculptures, musicians, poets and film-makers converging at Waterloo Eurostar entrance
Scar tissue: A sculpture created specifically for no man’s land responding to conflict in contemporary culture
10 London Underground Tube Stations, 10 Musicians, 10 Sculptures, 10 Poets and 10 Filmmakers
1 iconic landmark joining an Island to a Continent,
11 simultaneously live events across central Londonthrough a one-off live performance, no man's land invited the public to consider why we all hold the opinion we do on conflict and war. Seven months in the development, the event explores how European societies of 1912 walked blindly into the Great War of 1914-18, taking much of the world with them. Using conceptual live art performance and sculpture, the event has been created to examine bureaucracy, hierarchy, communication and how society creates major ‘events’.
 | Natasha created a
sculpture, entitled Scar Tissue, originally intended for Waterloo Underground Tube
station, however the sculptures were vetoed a week before the event by London
Underground due to potential ‘congestion’ in the tube tunnels. In the face of this major blow to the event and the sculptors, Natasha helped organized the use of the disused Eurostar Terminal just a few days before the event, determined to still participate in something special. Find out more: Scar tissue sculpture concepts and event reflections |
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Event process: A journey into the unknown
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Follow Natasha's journey into the unknown: Captain Reid's No Man's Land Log
Natasha was invited during summer 2012 to join this experimental event by Platform 7, an independent arts organization. John McKiernan, the event’s creator, offered the opportunity not only to create a sculpture to be exhibited, but also to be a “Captain” in this constructed hierarchy where the participants were yet unknown, the pieces of poetry and music to be performed not yet created and the station locations uncertain, even up until the day of the event itself.
Natasha decided the premise of collaborating with talented individuals from the realms of music, poetry and film-making, where the end result would be unknown, was something to be pursued, even in the face of total uncertainty. She took up “Captainship” of three stations, organizing and meeting with the teams whilst developing her ideas for a sculpture at Waterloo.
When it was announced a week prior to the event that the Underground were not going to allow the sculptures to be displayed alongside the performers, Natasha, determined to be involved at Waterloo in some shape or form, took a chance and approached BRBR, the company which owns the disused Eurostar terminal. That same day, she and John went to visit the space and to her delight it was agreed that it could be used not only for all the sculptures but also for the other artists to gather after their performances across the tube – a symbolic home-coming.
A plan was quickly formulated; that there would be no curation of the sculptures at all. The day before the event, Natasha adapted her original sculpture proposal to respond to the vastness of this new space, and the fact that the work would only be viewed by the public from above. Following the
event, Natasha is reflecting upon the ways in which territories, boundaries and
threshold are created in a space, both by physical objects and human activity,
and how empty / disused spaces can be activated through simple interventions.
She would like to thank John and Lenka of Platform-7 for creating and organizing such a thought-provoking and engaging process, and to Greg Beecroft and Jim Lynott of BRBR for providing us with a lifeline and being so accommodating. |
