Retreat in Progress

Our tent is open except when shut.

In private spaces with the door shut and sealed lives a place where work gets done. A constructed world of controlled conditions, full of purpose and intent, sustaining creation and focus.

For the 2014 project Pavillion 27 adapted a camera interior into a habitable space of retreat: a room for publishing and reading. Emerging from this and woven through were thoughts on tents, literary time, books and how to bind and read them. This process lead to the construction of a tent and the publication of material.   

The orange covers of the tent enclosed a Diazo printer; designed for use in the field of architecture, it uses large-format ultraviolet sensitive paper to produce 1:1 scale prints, a process similar to that of 19^th century analogue photography. The orange fabric cloak created a darkened space where light sensitive paper could be safely handled. Exposed paper was feed into an ammonia bath to reveal the image, what emerged was not fixed and remained fugitive.

Opening a book is shutting a door. Engrossed in its pages we let our minds navigate the narrative. So too is the process prevalent during its creation, both are crawl space of value. And when the process is complete, when the door is opened, a change in sympathies is revealed. 

Thanks to guest collaborators, Bless, and Nuno da Luz