POSTERS FOR POSTS

Tynemouth train Station
Part of ¡Vamos! Festival
2012
Curated by Pablo León de la Barra

This work takes over an entire Victorian train station through the use of minimal elements, using the columns as the only surface, and colour and repetition as the tools.

From Gili’s proposal: “Had I seen the old picture of Tynemouth Station before, maybe I would have considered renewing the idea of a permanent installation of flowers hanging from its columns. Originally those plants acted like fireworks in celebration of the new possibilities of metal and glass in architecture. It’s easy to imagine the feeling that such an amount of light gave visitors to the station in the 1890s, still common in good modern architecture today: transparency, warmth, lightness.

The station has changed little, and yet for me, similarly perhaps for those who first hung those plants, the necessity to add colour remains. Initially in the process my work took many different roads, but finally the idea of working with the columns won through. It is an essential structural element that can be taken for granted but, if highlighted, can become an interesting visual support. I worked on several combinations of posters for its different facets, considering various viewpoints plus the normal flow of pedestrian traffic on a daily basis as well as on special occasions. The final intervention, including the extra banners welcoming the visitors, aimed to be a celebration of architecture as much as an enhancer of social relationships, just like the flowers once were.”

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