2019_Thesis Book: Maria Diavolova

the current of the midsummer breeze circulate through. Suddenly, a cacophony of
laughter and applause fills the space, a sign of habitation that Raven has eagerly been
keeping an ear out for. A flock of artists fills the floor of Block 2B. 43
Raven glances into
each room, a stage for each artist. The artist in 2B-3 let the moss completely overgrow
into a variable backdrop to her performative art. The moss dries out when storms
subside, only to be reawakened as soon as they intensify. Yet, 2B-4 is hermetically
sealed by a pneumatic structure, a light, translucent membrane of compressed air,
which isolates the artist’s studio from the elements. Spilling out through the windows,
the assembly registers on the façade like two bulbous heads. 2B-5 has begun the
process of retreat, leaving behind only that, which can be reabsorbed into nature.
Sketches flutter along the walls, a gallery to a process of discovery and growth,
ushering its viewers to embark on it too. To let go.
Raven continues on her journey upward; along the corridors, which feel like
miniature streets, capturing a publicness 44 that she so rarely feels in the streets of
north London. The air is filled with acceptance of nature’s resurgence, as inhabitants
move out and onto London’s Green Belt. Nature is the landlord, and it’s time to obey
her.
(43) Heilgemeir 2013
artists at butler’s wharf, 1980s, fran cottell
https://archivesoftheartistled.org/projects/butlers-wharf
003
LOOKING OUT from atop the rooftop of Butler’s Wharf shortly after four
o’clock, Raven looked down onto meanders of dust and debris, silt and moss. Piles
of rubble line River Neckinger waiting to be scooped up by the next barge and
relocated to the banks of resurgent tributaries. Eroded land reveals non-operational
subsurface piping, absorbed into the Neckinger riparian zone. 45 The ruin of capitalism
is enshrouded in vegetation, transformed into a favorable riverside habitat; at the
next turn, the network of pipes mutates into a playground, connecting the otherwise
disjointed lagoons of Bermondsey.
Atop the rooftop, Raven sits on an old HVAC unit. Someone laid a wooden plank on
top of it, turning it into a haphazard rooftop bench. The roof is a field of HVAC units,
which sit quietly for once. Most are enveloped by moss or topped by sprouts like grass
heads. Artefacts of the Carbon Age—chimneys, exhausts, HVACs—have been stripped
of their toxicity and left standing as monuments to the age of untethered growth.
The remnants of the Anthropocene are monuments, absorbed into their locality, as
opposed to termed obsolete and transposed to a faraway island of toxicity. Compacted
plastic tetrapods line buildings’ foundations, as pacemakers of the erosive process;
waste is no longer disposable, but an authority which determines the durability of a
said reality. These crude habitats 46 are part of the collective memory; externalities,
which have been internalized into the lived experience.
artist’s studio butler’s wharf, 1980s, fran cottell
https://archivesoftheartistled.org/projects/butlers-wharf
(44) “…the public space is a place in which
there is a momentary condition of equality.
At some point in the future, many overused
cities will have to be reconstructed” (Sassen
quoted in Lim 2017, 77)
(45) interface between land and river
(46) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/
crude-habitat/
appendix a: atlas of erosive potentialities, 2150
025 026