Sheltering the Night (Re-enactment)

Moving Image / Video / 2011
Commissioned by SLICE - an international arts project / Funded by Arts Council England

SLICE takes as its starting point an imaginary line drawn from Liverpool Street Station in London to Central Station, Lahore. The first mile of the line at the Lahore end, and the first at the London end formed the inspiration for 20 new works in response to the cities. The project brought together digital work by arts practitioners from Lahore (Pakistan) and London (UK) to create a dialogue between two diverse cultures.

Sheltering The Night (Re-enactment) responded to the site of the old Providence Row Night Shelter on the corner of Crispin Street and Artillery Row, London, UK.

The building on this site is now accommodation for students at the London School of Economics as well as being a stop on numerous guided tours of the history of East London. Sure enough whilst attempting to make an incomplete re-staging of a crowd seeking shelter, (from an anonymous, late 19th Century image of the building), the activity of filming became part of a re-enacted history for a crowd undertaking a ‘Jack The Ripper Tour’.

Through the staging of a gesture, (a woman standing waiting, hands clasped), the work opens up the possibility of coincidence and chance encounter and of the street itself as a collaborator.