“A rooftop is not really complete without a chimney stack,” say John Booth and Mat Barnes from CAN ahead of their latest exhibition.
As part of NOW Gallery’s Design Commission of 2024, Up in Smoke by the designer-architect duo is bringing the peninsula’s industrial skyline, popping with colour, inside the gallery with an interactive look at the nostalgia of chimneys.
Speaking to the pair as they are installing Up in Smoke, they tell Thow they have worked in tandem – Mat doing the technical, architectural aspects and John the decorative.
John says: “It’s nice to collaborate with somebody because then you learn a lot more about their field. It’s really interesting when they work quite differently, so it’s been nice to work with Mat and see his technical work.”
Mat says he always liked John’s work and working on a pitch together “paved the way for this collaboration”, he adds.
They did historical and cultural research on the site where the gallery is located and were inspired by its industrial history to what it has become now.
Their starting point for the exhibition came after finding an etching of the Powder magazine used to store gunpowder from the 1700s, “which was the first drawing of the peninsula”, says Mat.
“We started looking at more recent history and the chimney icon became a symbol of the changing industrial heritage and a sign of changing times,” he adds.
John explains how “chimneys are such a definite thing, so recognisable and even the scale of them”.
He says: “There is a nostalgic element. We both live in southeast London, and I can see chimneys out of the window from New Cross to Surrey Quays. There’s an industrial heritage to the southeast London skyline, especially in areas like Woolwich, Greenwich and along the river.
“It feels industrial to me in a way that I find recognisable. Having grown up in an industrial part of northwest England, there’s a comfort and nostalgia attached to an industrial skyline, whether it’s in use or not.”
Mat adds that many houses in London were also built at a time when chimneys were the main source of heat in a house, and now are mainly decoration.
The chimneys in the exhibition are inspired by real-life historical photographs, reinterpretations of chimneys that no longer exist – you will find texts alongside each to explain what their function was in the past.
“There’s also a video of chimneys being felled on Greenwich Peninsula, which represents the process of rebirth and renewal of new factories. Those black and white images and video work well against the bright, colourful chimneys,” explains Mat.
Visitors to Up in Smoke will find five chimneys, all hand-painted by John: you’ll be able to walk through them, stare in, walk up and lots more, including a collaging table and ceramic chimneys, too.
“They have a flatness to them because, when we were designing it, we spoke about them looking like set pieces. We’ve left the timber bare on purpose, so there is that element of facade or artifice,” explains John.
John also spent time carefully choosing the clashing colours for the chimney; working with bright pops of paint, which is similar taste to both of their work.
“Mapping the structures has been really interesting,” John adds, “and even in a simplistic way, because I really love surface decoration, it’s really refreshing to work on an entirely new surface, scale and style of object”.
“I’m used to decorating small ceramic objects,” he says. “When you’ve got a wide brush and you can just paint really thick stripes, it’s been viscerally satisfying to do.”
Not only have the duo maximised impact with colour, with paints sponsored by Dulux, but also with the physical space. One of the chimneys almost reaches the ceiling, and it encourages people to travel through the exhibition due to the incremental heights.
“You come in thinking about how the chimneys layer, but the fun part for me was then thinking we could literally layer in the colours and choosing what clashes next to each other,” says John.
So, for a bright interpretation of the area’s historic chimney-filled landscape, visit Up in Smoke for free until 22 September 2024.
NOW Gallery, The Gateway Pavilions, Peninsula Square, SE10 0SQ
