Fashion illustrator, ceramicist and textile designer John Booth and Mat Barnes’s Architecture and Ideas studio CAN continue NOW gallery’s 10th anniversary celebrations in Greenwich with this spectacularly vibrant and prismatic show – the latest newly commissioned and free to visit project at the gallery.
The design-architect duo have transformed the gallery into a huge interactive installation,
John Booth & CAN: Up in Smoke, retelling the story of Greenwich Peninsula through its iconic chimneys – vessels of the area’s past, once a marshland that became an industrial centre in the city, before its more recent reincarnation as a home for culture.
Five reimagined chimneys represent different chapters in the history of the area – from the gunpowder stores of the 1700s to the pretty stacks that sit atop terrace housing around Boord Street. They are revitalised with brightly coloured, kaleidoscopic patterns, handpainted by Booth, whose playful aesthetic perfectly matches CAN’s irreverent approach. The chimneys – a definitive part of the London skyline – are taken as a romantic and nostalgic symbol from which to explore our relationship with the city. Visitors to NOW can walk, climb and look out from their chimneys, and create their own visions for the future – a fun way to engage with the history of the site.
