LONDON.- Commissioned by
Camden Arts Centre and supported by Bloomberg, Junction is a series of three new commissions for Londons Kings Cross in 2008-9. Artist William Hunt, art and architecture collective public works and filmmaker Ria Pacquée made new works including live music, comedy, undercover filming, a mobile poster float, and a polygraph machine.
Junction draws together all the work produced for the series, creating a unique snap shot of Kings Cross linked by its engagement with the notorious site. The show portrays a mix of community, spectacle and concealed spaces.
William Hunt invited a number of performers to take to the stage for his project Saturday Night TV, attaching each contestant to a lie detector in a live, X Factor-style show which interrogated the nature of performance art and the elements the audience perceives as authentic in performance. For the exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, Hunt will premiere a new film of his project alongside various ephemera used throughout the project.
public works roamed through Kings Cross on their mobile Folk Float, engaging with local communities and individuals to gather thoughts and opinions about how people can take control of regenerating their own community. Their project pooled experience and brought together previously disparate groups to act as a joint catalyst for activity and change. For their exhibition they aim to establish a public forum within the gallery with invited groups and individuals to continue this dialogue, giving a voice to the site.
Artist and filmmaker Ria Pacquée has been travelling to Kings Cross from Antwerp throughout the summer, secretly recording her journeys moving through the streets and forgotten spaces of the ever-changing and historical quarter of Kings Cross. The resulting film, Return of the Witness, is a private portrait of a very public space and will be shown as the final part of a triptych of films made about the area.