Thursday 22 October 2009

Harry Watts


© Harry Watts


© Harry Watts


© Harry Watts


© Harry Watts


© Harry Watts


Harry Watts Graduated from University of Brighton in 2009 with BA (Hons) Editorial Photography

“ The Bell Common Tunnel, situated on the M25 road network, is the area which I have been granted access to record. This is a £90.5 Million refit of a public space, in need of redevelopment, yet still 120,000 vehicles move through it daily. As one of the 234 structures, and one of only two tunnels, situated on the M25 the Bell Common Tunnel is in need of change. Behind on safety codes and fire regulations, over the next year replacements of mechanical, electrical and fire safety equipment will take place. The ventilation system will be upgraded and new monitoring equipment will be installed. In the end passers by might only notice the clean walls, newly painted lines and brighter lights.
Behind the walls and even above ground there are countless pieces that will hold together the safety of the motorist within the tunnel. These details are not placed on show or presented as artifacts but buried. Seeing behind the facade of the development

A tunnel is placed to cut a passage under a building or through a hillside. At Bell Common, situated in the Epping Forest, the tunnel sits under a part of historic countryside resulting in the need to minimize the effect on nature that has been vested in the Corporation of the City of London, and conserved by the Epping Forest Act, 1878. Along side the redevelopment of the tunnel interior, developments will be taking place above ground
The 470m-length stretch of tunnel is mirrored above ground with a cut out section of the forest, I have documented this change of space throughout the redevelopment and work in parallel with the construction below. Detailing with the means of which, us as humans, present traces of our presence to change the very space we inhabit.

The connection with the natural and artificial is an aspect that I have explored within this work. Not only does the redevelopment have to care for the road user during the time of construction, and following resolution, but also the preservation of the forest land above. Both natural and artificial have to co-exist, with the latter being a produce of nature itself, the spaces we develop create a nature that can be seen as surreal, a sculpture gallery if you may.
This sculpture park is the way that I have addressed these found scenes of surrealism in both the above and underground areas. Turning a normality of the everyday to an artifact of documentation, within a changing environment.”

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