Stainless Style
The Michael Faraday Memorial at Dusk
Bury me in stainless steel. My body will never rust.
– Neon Neon
The Michael Faraday Memorial sits at the centre of the Elephant & Castle roundabout in London. It is the centre of a flurry of activity; traffic and pedestrians buzz past this stainless steel monolith. It reflects the traces left behind by this action. While I was there, I became intrigued by the notion of ‘memorial’. Do the thousands who pass this monument know who it’s for? Are they magnetised towardsits subtle beauty?
After sun had set, I set about documenting the ever-changing lighting conditions on the building. It oozed quiet confidence – a cubist disco ball that knows something we don’t. Although it isa simple electricity substation, named in honour of a local lad who contributed greatly to the world of electromagnetism, it is nonetheless sturdy, robust, and has seen the reflected area undergo great change over the pastfew decades. It is charged with a determination to stand its ground.
Death keeps creeping into my work. I keep thinking of this simple silver substation that is a memorial for a man. A man that lived. The physical manifestation of his legacy is a box in the middle of a roundabout.I thought I’d remember him, for a moment.
