Artist Avril Corroon introduces Got Damp, a new installation at Project Arts Centre that explores damp as 'a crisis of nature in the home' and considers housing insecurity, the cost of living crisis and its health impacts, and forms of community protest.
Got Damp is an art project and exhibition of the same name opening at Project Arts Centre on the 20th April, which uses damp collected from houses as art material.
I began developing this work by spending two years researching living conditions and damp-related protests with the support of TACO!, an artist-led space in Thamesmead South East London.
The title refers to a poster protest which took place in Thamesmead in 1971, where tenants of the newly built development hung 1200 posters with red text 'I'VE GOT DAMP’ in every occupied home’s front window on the morning of a high-profile press event by the Greater London Council. The protest successfully led to remedial works and galvanised the newly forming Thamesmead Community Association. In 13 years of renting in Dublin and London, black mould has grown in nearly every place I’ve moved to. As it continually followed me – appearing as black spots on window sills and walls – I started to think about damp as a symbolically loaded material. Damp is an excess of moisture and, over time, it causes issues when it has no means of escape; it provides an environment for mould growth, a fungus integral to decomposing dead material. Our experience of encountering mould is innately uncomfortable, and this is especially heightened when confronted in the home. This feeling is visceral; a reminder of the body and mortality. Mould and damp as elements in this disintegrating housing-system, amplify the precarity of our lives, when it is increasingly hard to find a place to live and call home.
Having previously made artwork thinking through issues related to renting and housing conditions, I became interested in creating an exchange economy around damp, with people who shared this common problem in their home. I announced call-outs to find people interested in this experiment. I did this in numerous ways; approaching tenants’ unions, leafleting apartment blocks, through ads in local newspapers, stalls outside shopping centres, social media, night club smoking areas – pitching the idea to anyone who made the mistake of asking ‘what kind of art do you make?’.
The resulting exchange of damp is with 55 households from London and Dublin. Energy efficient dehumidifiers, 25 litre jerrycans and gratuity payments were provided, whilst households contributed interviews, images, stories and the damp itself. Participants saved the water from the dehumidifier tank in the jerrycans provided over the winter and spring. For the exhibition at Project Arts Centre (and concurrently at TACO! London) the volume of damp extracted, from each city respectively, will be set in motion; changing state and circulating through an architectural installation. Central to the installation is a thirty-minute film documenting the lived experience of participating households. I used a thermal camera commonly used by damp surveyors. The footage converts temperature data visually to create animation. For some tenants this gave partial anonymity and pinpoints areas of cold spots.
Combining a shared problem to literally form a larger mass is a methodology exemplified by over half the participants of Got Damp, who are members of Dublin-based CATU branches (Community Action Tenants Union). CATU defends the rights of tenants through knowledge sharing, grassroot organising and collective direct action. They work towards a shared vision for the provision of universal public housing.
Once the collection began, the damp flooded in. In Dublin the total volume is currently at 700 litres and I expect it to reach between 900-1000 litres by the opening on 20th April. Pouring out the full dehumidifier tanks into the jerrycans became ritualistic. Participants sent me photos of their monthly haul, and reports on air quality. In one home, baby Oscar takes his role seriously as chief overseer of the big pour; he is protective over the jerrycan and content. Once the containers are full, collection is arranged with ‘Giby’ who performs a biweekly milkman-style route, hoisting the bloated 25 litre containers into the back of a Peugeot and leaving empty cans behind. The damp is then stored under the stairs in the foyer at Project Arts Centre at ‘DAMP TANK’, where 200L barrels have been quickly filling up since last October. Originally there was just one barrel but the sheer quantity coming in meant continually buying more.
I consider this liquid collected to be art material, sculptural material, imbued with a set of social, political and economic relations. Damp embodies a perspiring housing crisis where a lack of robust protections for tenants creates vulnerability, and forces acceptance of lower standards that potentially damage health. Many participants and their children have asthma or respiratory issues and have been in a continual battle with both their landlords and black mould growth, spraying and wiping walls with vinegar and bleach solutions in one hand and a phone on hold with the housing association in the other. As material for artwork which is both political and personal, damp carries an essence of daily living, particles of DNA and actions carried out in a home. It records breathing, boiling potatoes, drying clothes, bathing bodies and washing dishes. To me, damp is saturated with meaning: it is domestic routine; it is collective agency; it is evidence.
Got Damp/ Púscadh Anuas by Avril Corroon launches Thursday the 20th of April at Project Arts Centre, and runs from the 10th June - find out more here.
