༺ WESTERN APPROACH TO PARADISE ༻

>> 2023, video, 3m 24s.

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>> {{ Western Approach to Paradise is a love letter to a demolished footbridge told through fragments of data on a spaceship terminal.

Using 3D scans of debris, 3D modelled replications, documentation, and appropriation of archival content, the work creates a futuristic mythos for Plymouth’s Western Approach footbridge and adjacent building.

Constructed during the post-war rebuilding of the city, a section of the bridge was torn down in 2018 as part of redevelopment works, making way for a boulevard that will connect luxury apartments to the city centre. The remaining section was demolished in 2020.

Becoming disliked locally due to lack of maintenance, the building's decaying state operates as an allegory for the failed utopian ideals of Plymouth’s post-war effort, and the ongoing struggle the city has with wider perceptions of it’s architecture.

Western Approach to Paradise imagines a future in which remnants of the bridge are discovered during a scavenging expedition to a post-climate collapse, oceanic Earth. Extracts from newspaper articles, references to ocean exploration methods, and research into architectural materials used across Plymouth combine to form lines of code on the scavenger ships terminal.

The work returns a sense of tantalizing mystery to the building - in line with the artist’s childhood memories of it - and in doing so, addresses anxieties around gentrification by turning Plymouth’ shifting urban landscape back into a site of untold possibility.

Western Approach to Paradise was selected for goingaway.tv - an online streaming of artist video accompanied by a live event at Arebyte Gallery, and part of The Wrong Biennale (2019-2020). It was also chosen to be highlighted on Arebyte On Screen. }}