-

Blueprint and Life in prototypes were conceived to complement/contrast each other and were created specifically for two adjacent and contrasting exhibition spaces.

Drawn on tracing paper that architects use over blue carbon paper, Blueprint is the architectural vision of a large fictional estate with its mirror image, made up by drawings of the elevations of various post-war housing estates (including Heygate Estate, which was being demolished at the time of filming) in London.

Life in Prototypes, a dual screen video installation with alternating images framing people's and other living/non-living things' movements in space, can be read as the realization of an architectural vision. Filmed in several large and iconic council estates in London, the spontaneous actions of people or even the unplanned, unexpected existence of animals and plants are set in contrast with the supposedly well-controlled manmade environment planned by architects in the 60s. Blueprint was inspired by modernist aesthetics and my own experience in architectural education while Life in Prototypes celebrates all accidental beauty that escapes planner’s control, but it is the contrast, the distance between the two that create the space for thought and discussion.