Simon Starling
Loft Lift (stacked)
December 11, 2013–January 1, 2014
Public Art Agency Sweden
In front of the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design
Exercisplan, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
Sweden
Loft Lift by Simon Starling is an art project initially created for the H+ redevelopment project, a new urban residential area in the harbour of Helsingborg, Sweden. In this project, Simon Starling explores and critiques the meaning of displacement, and inserts resistance and reflexion in a process of urban development.
Loft Lift (stacked) is a further elaboration on the project Loft Lift where a prototype was built out of three found dovecotes, small, fragile houses made of recycled material, that were removed and transported from their original environment and stacked on top of each other.
In its use of relocation, recycling and reconfiguration, Loft Lift (stacked) could be described as a model and a poetic expression that explores questions on urban development, gentrification, home, displacement, mobility and migration. The prototype embodies a unique and absurd logic—while providing a new home for pigeons. The project highlights values, such as the social context of the pigeon-fanciers’ association that previously owned the dovecotes, cultural heritage and architectural values, that are frequently overlooked in the development of new neighbourhoods.
Simon Starling’s Loft Lift is also part of the project Samverkan om gestaltning av offentliga miljöer (“Collaboration on the Design of Public Spaces”) in which artists, designers, antiquarians and architects engage actively together in projects around Sweden, alongside urban planners and engineers, to find new approaches and solutions for schools, travel centres, housing developments, urban spaces, hospital grounds and parks. The project is organised by the Public Art Agency Sweden, the Swedish National Heritage Board, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, and the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design.
Loft Lift (stacked) is placed outside The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design in Stockholm from December 11. More information about Loft Lift and Collaboration on the Design of Public Spaces will be available in the entrance area of the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design.
Simon Starling was born in 1967 in Epsom, England. He lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin. His works can be found in the collections of distinguished museums such as the Tate Modern, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In 2003, the artist represented Scotland at the 50th Venice Biennial. In 2005, he won the Turner Prize for the work Shedboatshed that involved taking a wooden shed, turning it into a boat, sailing it down the Rhine and turning it back into a shed.
Simon Starling’s Loft Lift was produced by Public Art Agency Sweden, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning and the Swedish National Heritage Board, in cooperation with the City of Helsingborg.
