The Switch House

After yesterday's epic diary fail, I returned to the city once more for my event at the Barbican. On route, I had to pick up a delivery of new business cards from Doodle at Liverpool Street station. Being too tight to stump up for peak travel, I decided to head in early. So once again I had a few extra hours to kill before hand. 

The Guardian website had helpfully drawn my attention to the new extension at the Tate Modern, The Switch House. So I headed over the river for a butchers. It's a giant higglety pigglety stack of twisting bricks. Affording an incredible view of London. Minus the brutal expense associated with a visit to the uppers floors of a corporate ministry like the shard.

As the Graunidad article points out, some of the millionaire neighbours in Neo Bankside aren't totally thrilled with their newly completed neighbour. Their sitting rooms turned into some kind of weird sight specific installation art. Of course, those apartments wouldn’t have been nearly as sought after without a world renowned art gallery on the doorstep. Neo Bankside? Someone really phoned that one in. I can’t say I feel that sympathetic (in fact, I have not one single ounce of sympathy for them). I do recommend a visit. Next time, I’ll hopefully have time for some of the art too. 

The event at the Barbican was a talk by Chris Steel-Perkins, the Magnum photographer behind the Teds. He was joined by the curator of photography at the museum of London, Anna Sparham and Ekow Eshun, former deputy editor of the Face, turned cultural renascence man. 

They each did a presentation before Sparham questioned the others about photography and subculture. Ekow was a much more natural speaker than the other two and he kinda stole the show in my opinion. It turned out he was the curator of the exhibition ‘Made you look; Dandyism and Black Masculinity’ which is currently on at the Photographers Gallery. I’m going to try and squeeze it in. 


It was a very interesting evening. I hoofed it back to Whitechapel afterwards (as I mentioned before, cheaper train). The city's much more enjoyable at night when the suits have gone home. All the tall buildings and glass come to life for me when they light up in the dark. Chuck something suitably atmospheric onto the old iPod and its like your wandering through your own personal movie trailer.


Extra Pics today.