Maximum Happiness
Park Hill Estate is a landmark building of Sheffield, a modernist iconic housing estate. For the exhibition, the façade of the building complex was illuminated by floodlights for one night. In a visible state of decay, about to be redeveloped into contemporary apartments, it still testified to the unparalleled vision of an imagined future. The title cites the architects of Park Hill who wrote that, although they did their best to fulfil the residents’ wishes “it is clearly impossible to secure the maximum happiness for everybody.” In the night of its illumination this modern machine was allowed to perform one last time, maybe to display its exhaustion, maybe to revivify the promise it once embodied.
Light installation with flood light, 3 hours. 15 minutes video loop, 2008. For Yes, No and Other Options, Sheffield Biennale.
