After looking at some great pictures of the grimmer end of the river on the Derelict London website we decided to go out to the area and look for old rusted metal and other potential materials.
Although we didn't find much, it was still interesting to go to this area that I would have otherwise never have visited. We were a little underprepared however, with no gloves and little to carry back materials in than Faysal's suitcase. A lot of time was also spent walking through housing estates as the river bank was not as large as we had hoped and the tide was in. Near the dome (or as it is now known, the 02) however, we encountered two small workshops. One of them had two old guys working on some metal, they offered us whatever we wanted out of a pile of metal piping/scaffolding which will be useful, but we could not carry much back. They had some great looking rusty barrels but there was no chance we would have been able to transport them.
Next door to the workshop was 'Dad The Mirror Man' an old eccentric south londoner who made mirrors with his daughter. He showed us his welding skills and really tried to help us out with collecting materials but didn't really had much to offer. The project seems to be drawing us towards these eccentric old guys which is helpful and potentially gives us ideas for character development.
Another really interesting find was a sculpture which was seemingly built spontaneously with no obvious artist name or commissioning company in sight. It was made up of rubbish that probably had been found swept up by the river. It was unusual and had that 'stumble upon' quality that our installation will hopefully achieve.
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It was mostly a pretty horrible affair, with the cold weather, general uncleanliness of the river and heavy lifting. Next time I'm wearing a jump suit, wellies and taking big strong bags.
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