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Conrad Shawcross has built two identical rope machines in the tram tunnel that will weave a thick hawser from 324 spools of coloured string |
Chords resound underground
Artist plays host for his installation
deep inside a long-forgotten London tram tunnel, writes Dan Carrier
IT has been empty since 1952, a dark subterranean passageway that rises up a cobbled slope and emerges in the middle of Holborn.
Now the defunct tunnel, that used to take commuters wobbling under The Strand on tracks that made the trams sway like drunken metronomes, is open to the public for a limited time – as the venue for a one-off art show.
Artist Conrad Shawcross was commissioned by the arts organisation Measure to use the tunnel for an installation of his choosing. He came up with a bizarre idea to install two moving rope-making machines, facing each other, which weave strands of multi-coloured cords as they slowly head in different directions on a set of newly installed tracks.
The machines have a series of arms, differing in size, and on the end of each one is coloured cord. As the machines move away from each other, the cord is slowly woven into a single multicoloured rope.
The show, Chord, is on for a month, and the machines in that time will make the journey back and forth just twice, making two 100-metre long lengths.
Shawcross said he wanted to create something that would “lurk in the depths” beneath. He first went into the tunnels three years ago but the project was delayed while Camden Council did emergency repair work.
“I was asked to come up with a proposal and it was a completely open brief,” he says.
His first reaction was that the tunnel offered a unique opportunity for an artist.
“It was an amazing place – I had often gone past it and peered over the railings wondering what went on down there,” he says. “To be given the keys was very exciting.”
The fact the tunnel has been closed for so long – and that only 20 people are allowed in at any one time – makes it even more intriguing.
Built at the turn of the last century, it was excavated using the cut and cover method and was enlarged in the 1930s. Originally it ran from Holborn along the length of Kingsway to another station at the Aldwych, finally surfacing at Waterloo Bridge.
Shawcross admits that the duration of the show, which is on for a month, and spending so much many hours in the tunnel is slightly unnerving – he has to be be on hand to talk to visitors and help show them through the murky caverns until they reach Chord.
“It’s quite some time to be under ground,” he says. “I’m just pleased it opened before the winter set in.”
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