Saturday 1 January 2011

Wish You Were Here? Postcards from the Future

"Wish You Were Here? Postcards from the Future" is an exhibition of fourteen digitally-transformed photomontages of recognisable London landmarks by Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones showing at the Museum of London. These images depict the possible impact of climate change on the city. 

The most captivating postcard, for me, is "The Gherkin" (although the building is commonly known by this name, it is officially called "30 St Mary Axe"), pictured below. The image reminded me of public housing estates in Hong Kong (I am familiar with them) and one of the photographs in Alvin Pang's series "We Belong Together" (published in Issue #12 of Cha). 

Click image to enlarge 
© Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

The descriptions says:
The iconic City office tower is now high-rise housing. Originally converted into luxury flats, the block soon slid down the social scale to become a high-density, multi-occupation tower block. The Gherkin now worries the authorities as a potential slum.
Refugees from equatorial lands have moved north in search of food. They make their homes in the buildings that once drove world finance – before the collapse of the global economy.


The exhibition is on until 6 March 2011. Alternately, you can view all the postcards and learn more about the project, first conceived in 2008, at the "London Futures" website. 
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4 comments:

  1. The webmaster says: "Looking at the pictures from their website, it strikes me odd that while apparently the city has changed into shanty towns, agrarian fields, or desert, the buildings are apparently unchanged by time or erosion."

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.london-futures.com/2010/10/04/buckingham-palace-shanty/

    It seems that there'll always be a crowd outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, either because of the Changing of the Guards or changing of the climate.

    ReplyDelete

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