Installation and photographic study of a closed library

The Backdrop for the memory marathon associates two objects of storage. Displaced from the excavated ground and flooded roof of Herzog and De Meuron’s pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery, Backdrop recreates the facade of one of the practice’s early iconic projects, The Ricola Storage buliding, in linen fabric on silver scrim. The Ricola’s structure is reminiscent of bookshelves. In parallel, the project visits Kensal Rise in North London, where a Carnegie Library was closed by Brent Council in 2011 and was stripped of its books during the night. For the Memory Marathon the interior that was left behind was carefully documented.