‘INTRANSIENCE’ is a site-specific installation that aims to instigate conversations around
the construction of the legacy of a place on the verge of destruction. The work highlights the power of individual stories through the collective creation of a legacy. The installation takes the audience into a parallel dimension on the site of The West Pier in Brighton, placing them in the moment of its collapse, and forcing them to face the collective anxiety that exists in the city over the final collapse of the pier's skeleton.
The work looks to take on a dialectic, collective approach to creating a legacy for the pier. It aims to examine the elements and voices that might play into the creation of that legacy, by offering the audience a chance to revisit the past and possibly contribute to editing it, as well as be critical of the present, culminating in a record that is both an antidote for transience, and an orchestration of entropy. The collectively written version of the story is offered as an alternative to the current (or projected) one, which is likely to be left up to the more authoritative (albeit somewhat detached) voices, those found in the museum archives and history books.
The narrative transports the audience into the 'afterlife of buildings', where they witness a debate panel between representatives of different parts of that dimension (in the form of anthropomorphised buildings that are iconic, remembered, repurposed, replaced, or forgotten) around how to usher the pier into the afterlife and in which land to place it. The audience members are then invited to explore and be critical of a set of elements that could dictate the telling of the legacy of the pier, before contributing their opinion towards the discussion.
Collaborators:
Research Consultants/Reality Checks: Prachi Joshi, Sari Shrayteh
Architecture: Ekta Raheja
Materiality Testing: Sari Shrayteh
Prototype Installation: Annemarie Mayo, Fatima Khuzem, Vishanka Gandhi, Nozomi Koseki, Wasna Mansur, Sari Shrayteh, Prachi Joshi
Sound: Odai Shawagfeh (Composition), Moustafa Abdelhamid (Editing)
Video: Victor Pare Rakosnik (Camera), Mais Salman, Liu Chang (Editing)
Technology: Nadeen Ayyashi