The Day Before Today

“In response to the architecture of Station, Lisa Scantlebury has enveloped the building in its surrounding environment. Three sides of the building are shielded with a photographic screen depicting the immediate view of the area, erasing the building’s physical presence. In suggesting the removal of Station, Scantlebury simultaneously expands the visual area of the building, consciously considering its physical form in relation to its exterior view. The photographic shield realigns Station with its surroundings in a move that makes the viewer reassess not only the building but also their immediate view. Scantlebury has consciously chosen the type, format and detail of each photograph to create a reconstruction of the contemporary site, playing on our perceptions of space and the image, and with our experience of the immediate environment.

We are invited to engage in a dialogue with the building, its physical presence and surrounding situation, a dialogue heightened by the ghost-like shell of Station pushing through the photographic screen. The relationship between the hidden object and the photographic image is full of ambiguity, referencing perhaps a history or myth of the building’s function, even commemorating the hidden structure in a ceremonial shroud.

Here, the idea of revelation – of unveiling the building from its mask – hovers in the background, mirroring its fragile reflection through the screen and commenting upon the mass of construction work taking place upon the harbour side. The scaffolding, the tarpaulin, and the constant shift of structural forms all come to bear in Scantlebury’s hint of unveiling, playing with our notions of the ideal.

Scantlebury successfully converts the space from an intimate, isolated and minimal area into a striking object of public display. She twists the function and status of the gallery into her own ambitions for the space, commenting upon the immediate site and our memory of the physical form, tempting the viewer by its hidden object.”

— Laura Mansfield, a-n Magazine, February 2006