Turner Prize winner Helen Cammock is the latest artist to be commissioned by The Line, the ever-expanding 7.7 km long public art trail connecting the waterways through the Greenwich Meridian across East London. Running from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford to North Greenwich, The Line has a long history (9 years to be precise) of commissioning public artworks with the intention of encouraging the public to look at the sometimes lesser-known landscapes around the River Lea with new eyes, inviting viewers on a journey of discovery by foot along its pathways, mixing art, nature and heritage.
Cammock joins an illustrious roster of artists commissioned by The Line, including Larry Achiampong, Alex Chinneck, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Tracey Emin, Simon Faithfull, Abigail Fallis, Laura Ford, Madge Gill, Antony Gormley, Ron Haselden, Carsten Holler, Gary Hume, Anish Kapoor, Somang Lee, Virginia Overton, Eva Rothschild, Thompson & Craighead, and Richard Wilson.
Visitors encounter Cammock’s work – entitled On WindTides – after a short walk alongside the pathways departing from Cody Dock. It is an area that not many people would be familiar with, the grassy banks alongside the River Lea punctuated by wildflowers in full bloom, and an assortment of industrial sites. It is a peaceful and eerily beautiful part of town. In the distance, Goldfinger’s Balfron tower, and the distinctive towers of Canary Wharf further afield, serve as a reminder that we are, after all, still in East London.
On WindTides is a large scale text based installation occupying both sides of the cable bridge that crosses the tidal River Lea and the boundaries between Tower Hamlet and Newham councils. Cammock’s artistic interest in voice, narrative and social history is reflected in this work, which was developed through a series of community engagement sessions earlier this year.
Each letter is formed from powder-coated steel, attached to both sides of the river in light green (one side) and light orange colours (opposite side), in Cammock’s signature typeface: Letter Gothic MT Med. The metal fonts create a subtle play of shadows and light at different times of the day. It calls for an act of pause while offering a quietly powerful anchor to a specific moment in time.
The two sides of the bridge bear the words: ‘we fold ourselves across the tides’; and ‘from silt to land sometimes we live as wind blown sand’, respectively. Cammock tells me that this is the first time she has ever used rhyming words in her poetry.
On WindTides is one of three new artworks to be added to The Line this year, all supported by Newham Council – part of its neighbourhood Investment Programme to evolve more inclusive and resilient communities. Each commission is developed through a co-commission model to foster a greater sense of ownership with residents and local groups.
I caught up with Helen Cammock during the launch event for On WindTides, where I was also able to see her mesmerising new film, commissioned by The Line, The Lay Shaft Drive is Down, which explores the area’s milling heritage at The House Mill, on Bow’s Three Mill Lane. The site is now a busy filming and production hub near Bow.
Your studio is based not far from Cody Dock, did you know this area of London before your commission?
I’ve lived in different parts of Hackney over the past 15 years and have had a studio in Bow for the past decade, so East London has been a place I know in some ways but it is a large area with many different communities. I hadn’t been to Cody Dock even though you can almost see my studio across the River Lea in Tower Hamlets. So there were some ‘knowns’ but also a lot of discovery. Every area opens itself up to you in different ways depending on how or why you’re inhabiting it.
With the two sides of the bridge carrying two different sentences, is there a specific sequence you’d like your work to be read? And do you think a visitor may get a different interpretation whether they encounter the left or right side of your intervention first?
The work is intended to be read from either direction. The texts both speak about how we navigate the fluidity of life – recognising, sometimes accepting the movements of life, but also understanding them. They speak of how we as individuals sit within landscapes, communities and families and how the shifts and changes within this are sometimes forced, sometimes chosen and sometimes happenstance. Both texts speak to the same core ideas but the modes of language used are different. More than the order in which the texts are encountered I believe the work can have different meaning for people with the different times of day with the light changing and the shadows that are created – but most importantly work is always read differently depending on who we are or what our life experiences are and this is the most important factor.
Community engagement and participation is at the core of your work for The Line. Did you have a specific line of research in mind when you started the engagement process?
I wanted to talk about community – and about what it means to belong, how it feels to belong to more than one community, what it means to be excluded or to exclude others. I wanted us to talk about local communities and more widely about the idea of global communities. What we do with our place in communities – what we give and what we receive. And how significant landscapes are in our lives and how this changes – sometimes within our control – and sometimes not.
Did communities you engaged with come from everywhere around London, rather than just East London? Is there a commonality between communities you found and wanted to highlight in this work?
The community groups involved in the workshops were all based locally. The students at London School of fashion are based in Bow and some of the people attending the Well Being Walks come to walk the River Lea but live elsewhere. But all the other people who participated live locally and many of them have for many years. Our conversations were about how communities begin, grow and change over time. We discussed geographical communities, familial communities and of course communities of interest or identity. This conversation was the main thread that ran through the workshops, alongside what it means to speak and be heard – to say something about the world and how you inhabit it. These workshops gave us space to talk about our different relationships to our family or community or landscapes and to discover the commonalities we share.
What do you want visitors of The Line to take away from this commission?
Questions, thoughts and feelings. Some kind of internal response that has the potential to materialise in external dialogue. I hope the texts will provide a space for reflection, conversation and perhaps action.
Words MB
