Unlike in a hotel where any trace of previous inhabitants is erased, leaving the room sterile, our Room will welcome these traces, thus enhancing the foreign occupier’s appreciation of British culture. The guest artist can choose to leave something behind, allowing the room to transform, curated by Southbank Centre. An element of surprise combined with fulfilled expectations are essential to one’s successful acclimatisation to a new leaving space. Found and purpose made objects reflecting popular culture will reinforce a feeling of British homeliness within a modern context, blurring the boundaries between mass-produced kitsch and authenticity . The juxtaposition of the Room with the Southbank spectacular urban setting is virtually impossible outside the realm of this project, becoming a comment on failed urbanism, a collage of realities. The Room is intended to bring forward questions of class and taste in society and reflects on the obsessive privacy in the urban environment.
