In the blue: Seizure through a lens

Seize the Day, Join the Queue: Adventures in Elephant & Castle and "Seizure"

I can't remember the last time I got out of bed at 8:00 am, on a foggy winter Sunday, for art. It was the final day of Seizure, the much talked about installation by Roger Hiorns, in which the artist transforms an urban housing estate into an immersive grotto of overgrown copper sulphate crystals. Wow, sounds great! After teasing my imagination with all sorts of weird and wonderful sci-fi visions of massive blue crystals and moon like surfaces, I decided to sacrifice the warmth of my bed in pursuit of visual stimulation at an abandoned housing estate in Elephant & Castle.

I met up with some fellow art enthusiast-cum-masochist friends at the nearby shopping mall, for a quick fix of caffeine and some temporary shelter from the murky morning rain. Our initial plan of beating the ‘last day’ crowds got a little swayed once inside this weird and wonderful structure, called god knows for what reason "Infanta de Castilla". Let me just say, this mall deserves a blog on its own. It was incredible; like going back in time, bang in the centre of London. I felt like I was in East Berlin or on a very well made film set, having successfully captured the soviet spirit. The feeling of decay hung strong in the air, as did the stench of something fishy. This place had well passed its expiry date, but for me, it was a novelty. I snapped away frantically at my discovery, delighted to be somewhere outside of the glossy-ads, consumerist mania which is central London, especially now, just weeks away from Christmas. I felt like I had found my Zen in these dated surroundings, where time stood still. Its easy to forget just how advanced the London where I live in is.


But anyway, back too art. A few coffees, some sock jokes and an extremely sweet banana milkshake later, we made our way back to the cold and rain, in the search of Harpers Road. A crowding cloud of colourful umbrellas seemed like a telltale sign. Ah, a queue. It must be here. Where else but in London could you be greeted by this marvellous site on a Sunday morning. In fact there was two queues; one for the wellies, which obviously seemed to be undersupplied, and the other for the actual art. The wait was about an hour, the site assistant informed us. An hour in the cold. Oh well, we got this far.


Twenty or so minutes into the stationery wait, one of our party abandoned us for the pub to get the blood flowing back in his toes. One man down, but we were still going strong and full of hope.

After another hour passed, and we were still in queue one, I started to question my loyalty to art. The experience seemed to be turning into a test about the art of queuing. Despite the cold, everyone was very well behaved. They even brought books, these organised folk. By this time I too had started to loose touch of my toes and the prospect of putting on a pair of wellies and trudging around in puddles of blue chemicals (that is what the wellies were for) seemed less and less enticing for me. This crystal grotto better be good!


Eventually at 3:00pm we reached our turn, and went inside, into the rooms full of blue. And it was pretty, like a school chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong where chemicals mutated, devouring everything in sight. There were a few tiny rooms to explore, all united by the merciless attack of the crystals. Yet, during the two-hour wait, I had constructed such a magnificent palace of blue in my head, that not even a crystallized Taj Mahal would have impressed me much. Nor was the blue much embraced at this point by my comatosed companion. I wander if a warmer choice of colour would have been a more successful experience?


I spent my 10 minutes inside taking a thousand photos, while Irina poked at the walls to take away as many loose crystals as she could. Having waited so long we did not want to leave empty handed. It was after however, having found warmth and shelter at a local latino pub, that we were truly able to examine and enjoy our sapphire crystals. Was it a worthwhile wait? Had it been shorter, and the day warmer, perhaps it would have been a more enjoyable experience. Nevertheless I’m grateful to Mr. Hions for my unexpected visual stimulation of the Elephant & Castle terrains.