Temple to Moorgate, 31 August 2013

a loose traverse

What did I expect from this? Simply put, I just wanted to observe and explore how I would engage with the space given by the route. With a nod to the situationists, I decided to give my walk some direction by introducing a random element. For this I chose the crosses that I found on my rather tattered map. Not that I really was set to find all the churches but, having just read ‘Hawksmoor’ by Peter Ackroyd, I was intrigued enough to let it become my guide.

On this dérive, I saw various religious buildings serving very different purposes, finding more than were recorded in my A-Z and paid attention to details that I would have otherwise overlooked. At times, I felt like a crazed amateur historian with a weird taste in what to choose to photograph. Yet after an hour or so the process began to change and I was not so much driven by finding the next church but began to focus on the boundaries of the private and the public, on space regulations and the threshold spaces where things are not so clear. I observed where I was allowed to walk and where not, I felt strangely guided by barely visible signs whilst at the same time being tempted to disregard them[1]. Occasionally, I also had vivid flashbacks of my first encounters with London and, even more bewildering, of moments in other cities that I had visited in the past.

My photographic walk was included in A Loose Traverse a collaborative exhibition organised by the Crossing Lines group and the London Independent Photography group in 2013.