Tightrope Walking is nearing its ‘finale’. I compile the materials - namely hundreds of images carefully selected from the archive along with contemporary newspaper images to correspond to the text I've written during the Spring (read it here). The images are layered, superimposed, meshed and woven together to form the A-Z of an Uncertain Future - a series of twenty-six collages, each measuring 30x30cm. A plan to hang the work along Paupers' Walk which connects the college's old and new building has been agreed. However, a drama is brewing as a change of direction for the project, and Homerton College more broadly, appears on the horizon.
It is therefore amusing and strange that it is at this point- as the project nears its end, that I visit William Kentridge's wonderful and wondrous Let the Drama Begin at the End exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Kentridge's immersive work combines drawing, writing, theatre, puppetry, opera, film, dance, sculpture, tapestry and performance. His 'works are huge in scope but also huge in scale: there are floor-to-ceiling drawings, four-metre tapestries, multi-screen films, mechanised theatre sets, and stage performances with huge casts. His source material is vast – he draws inspiration from African porters in the First World War and the Russian Revolution. He melds geographies, visual and technical histories, with layers of artistic and political references. His navigational axis runs between Europe, Africa and China, between the past, present and future unfolding from that history'*. Small wonder then that as I put the final touches to my A-Z of an Uncertain Future, which is an eclectic and highly layered compendium of images and references, his work chimes and reverberates for a long while after I leave the building.
I find it comforting to experience this great artist's masterful layering just as my own project is being challenged by Homerton College's new principle, who regards the sketch collages I show him, one cold Autumn day in the library, anchored in the past. In light of this unexpected turn and uncertain future for the A-Z, Kentridge's opening titles Let the Drama Begin at the End, that welcomes visitors to this extraordinary exhibition, seems an apt reminder that endings can also be beginnings and dramas are part and parcel of any arts practice, in fact our lives in general.
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