[proposal for Frieze Projects 2014, Regents Park, London]

Sited within the Frieze grounds (ideally within the tent, possibly within a vitrine), a machine will drill into the earth. Visually evocative of both archaeological & exploratory industrial excavation, the work is addressed to current & historical contestations of land rights & usage, its ownership & transformation, the sites of protection versus destruction. It is an attempt, through land, to find where the physical & symbolic converge, to engage the boundary where art meets a broader socio-political matrix.

The work’s title refers to the act by which Henry VIII seized control of Regents Park, previously the property of Barking Abbey. After which the land was used to entertain visiting dignitaries.

The work also refers to the creation of Regents Park as we know it today – when, in 1811, the Crown didn’t renew the leases to the tenant farmers who’d been tending it for the previous 150 years, spotting instead a development opportunity. Works on Regents Park commenced in 1812 & took 26 years to complete –”a most extraordinary scene of digging, excavating, burning, & building, … more like a work of general destruction than anything else.” The digging is in part an attempt to excavate this history, through a search for potential material fragments.

The proposed excavation also alludes to fracking – in particular the situation at Barton Moss in Salford. IGas “does not yet have permission to collect any shale gas it finds” & yet protesters are being arrested for occupying public land, including a friend whose criminal act was to sing. It brought into sharp focus not only the superceding of law by financial forces in this particular part of Salford, but also the question of where exploratory drilling is allowed to happen – if there is a geological rationale for why e.g. this wouldn’t take place in London.