Presented by SCLATER STREET PLATFORM

Exactly ten years after his first London solo show at 97-99 Sclater Street, Ferdinand Penker returns with his project YAMANOTE.

Inspired by the delicate construction and elevated outdoor position of the new platform, Penker re-enacts a trip on a Tokyo subway where advertisements hang freely, unprotected and never vandalized  from the subway cars’ ceilings. Reacting to the motions of the train, these sheets of printed cardboard sway in synchronicity above the heads of passengers and create a metaphor of collectivity, the compulsions and constraints in social beings, like schoals of fish or swarms of starlings.

Penker will suspend 42 monochrome watercolors on heavy handmade paper from the imaginary ceiling of the Platform, where wind and weather will choreograph their movement. The installation is completed by sound files recorded at the Yamanote line.

In keeping with the transport theme, the whole installation, including images, hardware and audio, equipment, is conceived to fit the weight- and size limits set by the Irish discount airline that connects Penker’s home with London.