At World’s End is a collaboration between Arthur Laidlaw and Nick Scammell, which arose out of a shared despair for London.

Beginning at the threatened second-hand book market under Waterloo Bridge, the artists worked in parallel, with the shape, nature and qualities of ‘the book’ emerging as a defining presence.

For Arthur Laidlaw, this takes the form of a sketchbook; his in-situ drawings an act of reportage prompted by the Grenfell Tower fire. These studies document the physical structures of social housing in London, particularly buildings still clad in flammable materials. These drawings are then scanned and enlarged, archived and yet distorted, before Laidlaw erases and defaces the digital prints using paint, mono-print, and collage. Each layer of the work’s production complicates its composition, reducing clarity. Yet it remains rooted in a landscape of social and political tension.

By contrast, Nick Scammell distills his pursuit of impermanence through the surface and body of second-hand books, either actual or digital. While also considering the frailty of words when faced with the unspeakable.

At World’s End echoes the page as a conversation between recto and verso, word and image, and the commons and limits of each.

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Opening: Wed 27 February, 6-9pm
Exhibition: 28 Feb-10 March, by appointment only