There’s no getting away from it, this project from artist James Thompson is bleak, bordering on horrifying, but compelling like the proverbial car crash. Mental health treatment was in its infancy – to put it kindly – in 1888 when West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum was founded. The facility in Menston, West Yorkshire, later became known as High Royds and only closed down 10 years ago, and its history was so significant that Thompson set out to not only document it, but use it as an exploration of space and confinement. The result is Expanded Spaces, a documentary study taken forward into Cubist re-interpretation at Marsden Woo‘s project space, London.
Thompson set about work in one of the claustrophobic cells, employing a varying selection of techniques to capture their oppressive nature – Jesmonite® casts of nooks and crannies accompany impressions captured in silicone and foam in replicating objects in frightfully skewed versions of the original settings, and visitors can expect a further sensory assault from a visual representation of high-pitched audio signals the artist used to define the room’s dimensions. Complex and thought-provoking, the ‘in progress’ shots of Thompson’s work are equally mesmeric. The madness, if we may use the word lightly, lasts until 2 November.
James Thompson,
installation view of ‘Expanding Spaces’
at Marsden Woo Gallery Project Space (2013),
photo © Philip Sayer,
courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
James Thompson,
installation view of ‘Expanding Spaces’
at Marsden Woo Gallery Project Space,
focus on ‘Inflated Space’ (2013),
photo © Philip Sayer,
courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery
Mark Davis,
view of High Royds Asylum (2013)
photo © Mark Davis
Mark Davis,
view of High Royds Asylum (2013)
photo © Mark Davis
James Thompson,
installation view of ‘Expanding Spaces’
at Marsden Woo Gallery Project Space (2013),
photo © Philip Sayer,
courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
James Thompson,
work in progress at High Royds
former psychiatric hospital,
West Yorkshire (2013)
photo © James Thompson
