Souvenir

At the heart of Souvenir is Michael Bracewell’s haunting eulogy to the London of the late 1970s and early 1980s; a city poised between the twilight of one era and the dawn of the new digital era. With the novella as its touchstone, this singular exhibition suspends visitors in an atmospheric state, harnessing the Chapel’s innate magical space as a kind of living keepsake — an architectural memory frozen momentarily outside of time and space.

Passages from Bracewell’s vivid text are brought to life as a recorded sound piece, voiced by actor Paul Kaye, who was a student at Harrow School of Art during the period the book is set. This is accompanied by a new composition from composer and piano inventor Sarah Nicolls, created on her radically modified upright grand piano. Her celebrated Inside-Out Piano is installed before the Chapel’s marble altar.

Souvenir by Michael Bracewell is published by White Rabbit Books.

Bristol-based artist Matthew Healey reflects on the Chapel itself as a symbol of a vanishing London. Drawing on his expertise as a prop-maker, Matthew crafted a scale model of the Chapel as it stood after the demolition of the Middlesex Hospital — enshrined within an oversized snowglobe. Alongside this, London-based artist and filmmaker Sal Pittman brought her cinematic, site-responsive approach to the exhibition, designing a series of unique vignettes within the audio environment, allowing visitors to explore objects, books and magazines evocative of the novella. The material presented within these vignettes was kindly provided by the Rock & Roll Public Library.