PETER ACKROYD'S THAMES exhibition on the millennium bridge
In the summer of 2006, Ackroyd, Robertson and the architect Iain Johnston were commissioned by the RIBA and The London Festival of Architecture
to design and produce an installation celebrating the River Thames and its history as it flows through London.
It was designed to coincide with the publication of Ackroyd's biography of the river, THAMES: SACRED RIVER, and took its content and inspiration from this work. Situated along the glass sides and handrails of the Millennium Bridge, it tells the story of the Thames through Ackroyd's words and a mixture of historical and contemporary images.
The Festival's climax was a recreation of St. Bartholomew's Fair in Smithfields and a sheep herding across the Millennium Bridge to re-create of the ancient Mediaeval rights of the freemen of the city.
RIBA & LONDON FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE • 2006
Map in collaboration with The Museum of London & ordnance Survey
DARK WATERS audio installation
In the summer of 2008, Ackroyd, Robertson and Iain Johnston were again commissioned by the RIBA and The London Festival of Architecture to design and produce
a follow up installation, also celebrating the River Thames and the industry which grew up on and around it.
Working with Bisset Adams Architects a series of audio pieces were sited on each of the Thames Clipper piers along the river.
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The exhibition was call DARK WATERS
Together with the Museum of London and using their audio archives, it became an 'exhibition' of the recorded interviews with the last surviving dock workers and those who made
a living by the river, recorded throughout the second half of the 20th century.
These were played for the duration of the festival on each pier, mixed with a live audio feed of the river below the structures, using submerged microphones.
This mixed historical records and narrative with the immediacy of the living river beneath your feet.
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To accompany the exhibition a map was produced in collaboration with Ordnance Survey and distributed free of charge on each pier.
RIBA & LONDON FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE • 2006
Map in collaboration with The Museum of London & ordnance Survey
Exhibition development & design / print and sound design by Nick Robertson
Curation by Nick Robertson, Peter Ackroyd, Iain Johnston
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