James Pockson

In a small corner of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club a plywood board obtrudes from the wall. Its pale, wood-chipped texture is distinctly at odds with the smooth varnished wooden panels which covers the permanent wall. As I walk into the room the panel gradually reveals a staircase- also in plywood- seemingly leading nowhere. Perhaps this is just a construction to facilitate a performance which is going to happen later in the evening? It is strangely alone and isolated as bodies rush past, avoiding this strange precariously new structure. Only later, when said performance is getting into its 25^th minute do I glance around the room, upto the suspended ceiling tiles do I notice that one is mis-placed. This mis-placed tile is above the staircase. I approach it and ascend carefully, wiling to stop at the interruption of an invigilator but when I reach the top, and look through the gap, do I see a vast, domed ceiling from which the tiles are suspended.

This work by architect James Pockson is part of collective 20//20’s occupation of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, yet of all the works, this seems to be the strongest intervention in the space. This work is not simply laid over the fabric of the building but physically interfering with it. By removing a layer of the building’s skin, the work entices a new dialogue in the space; it creates a deeper and more complicated understanding of a building which has seemed to achieve a harmony between working man’s social club and young creatives’ venue. The work exposes a history which it does not explain; it sets off the imagination and allows a past to co-exist with the present.

This work is one of a number of recent works which take temporality ad historic narratives as their themes. From re-enactment of historic events (Jeremy Deller and Anri Sala) and artworks (Once More With Feeling Orianna Fox) to the layering of historic and futuristic narratives onto spaces, for example last year’s Turner Prize winner, Susan Phillpsz or her contender the Otolith Group. Each of these works, in their very different ways, shift focus onto the present moment by their revision to the past and future. Pockson’s work at BGWMC refrains from a specific narrative as Phillipsz’ or Deller’s work does, it engages with physical ruin rather than that of memory of political ideas. His revelation of physical layers reminds of the traces of history which remain invisible around us yet which speak of histories which we can directly relate too. The work does not extol the virtues of preservation or retro-mania, which the BGWMC certainly profits from, it subtly comments on the vacuity of appearances by allowing the viewer to discover this secret glory in their own time.