Also lit was the new intricate, precise, and slightly unnerving “War Room”.
Occupying the whole of Gallery 6 one of the newly ‘found’ spaces, this was the most complex of Cornelia Parker’s four enigmatic creations to rig.
The 20 metre long piece resembles an apex roofed marquee in shape with the walls and ceiling constructed out of long drops of blood red paper made from recycled waste from the factory that manufactures the 45 million Remembrance Day poppies sold each year. It is lit by four stark hanging light bulbs.
dbnAudile’s brief was to devise a system whereby the gallery staff could work on constructing this piece at ground level, which could then be raised up.
The lines of fabric had to sit with 12 mm spaces between the outside edges and the next layer in, and all be perfectly lined up so they are seamless with only one layer of fabric visible to viewers.
The simple but elegant solution was to dead hang a Slick litebeam trussing grid in the roof utilising the new house rigging points, allowing a ‘ridge’ truss to be suspended on motors below. The gallery technicians could then attach all the drops of material at working height – while safely standing on the ground.
When this task was completed, the ridge truss was flown out to the desired height, deaded off, and the motors removed. The gallery crew then diligently lifted the material and secured each of the material drops on the side positions forming the apex shape running along the centreline of the work.