Photographer Nick Scammell on his intervention in Finchley, where a V2-rocket landed on houses in Abbots Gardens, killing 5 people, including 2 children. Curiously, I never had any intention of documenting my installation. It was only when a journalist for the local paper asked (in advance) for images that the thought even dawned on me. I saw the project in entirely un-photographic terms - as an ephemeral construction/performance. Yes, I had a plan, collected and dried the leaves, wrote the names of victims on them, but I left a lot to chance (both deliberately and through incompetence) so that much was decided in the moment, as I was building. Weather was awful, hands were freezing, thus the images were as bad as you see. Truly, the piece was the work and the photos are merely perfunctory. Given that I am, by practice, a photographer, this was certainly an interesting and unusual turn of events, and it was certainly quite liberating to be working free of the usual visual constraints (of what would reproduce well from a single, given viewpoint). Working out of doors on a three-dimensional structure viewable in the round was something new and has certainly invigorated my practice, in terms of my now thinking of making future installations for camera, exploiting variety of viewpoint and everyday materials. I hope I get the chance to contribute to a similar event in the future!
Nick Scammell's V2 on Abbots Gardens [click] www.nickscammell.com