Output details

Elevation

'Elevation' is a film created during ongoing research into relationships between communities and their architectural habitats. This practice-based research developed while Sheffield’s (in)famous Park Hill social housing scheme underwent a period of clearance and reinvention. Europe’s largest listed building, the estate was initially lauded as a network of 'streets in the sky' and has since been loved and loathed as a modernist vision or a crumbling eyesore.

The film comprises fixed-camera portraits from selected vantage points around the complex, and a concurrent oral history by longtime caretaker Grenville Squires, who describes the structure's successes and failures.

Commissioned for the ‘Sheffield Pavilion 2009’ DVD/book project [ISBN–978-1-899926-96-1], and supported by Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum (now Art Sheffield), it was first presented in a parallel programme at the 11th International Istanbul Biennial, 2009, and was then included in a curated selection of works which toured to Sierra Metro, Edinburgh, and Voges Gallery, Frankfurt.

The work was independently selected for ‘A Modern Romance’, 20-21 Visual Arts, Scunthorpe, and ‘Local Anaesthesia’, 198 Gallery, London. Film festivals and symposia include Kassel Documentary Film Festival, Germany (2009); This Is Not A Gateway, London (2010); and 12th Bandits-Mages Festival, France (2011).

'Elevation' was screened at EXHIBIT gallery (Golden Lane Estate, London), leading to an artist residency supported by the Super Estates Foundation to mark Golden Lane's fiftieth anniversary. This period of research developed into a 45-minute artist documentary, 'The View From My Window Tells Me I’m Home', which intimately describes life in this iconic architectural environment, acting as a social record of the lives and thoughts of ten current residents. Accompanying research includes a series of maps and audio works documenting residents’ favourite walks through the estate. The project screened at EXHIBIT as part of Open House London, 2013.