Daniel Pateman
Salvage is a metaphysical and literal exploration of a process of recovery that takes place every day, allowing for the maintenance of the social fabric and the recovery of our own selves in the wake of decay and dissolution. Archive materials, artefacts, written records and photography – aids to our collective memory - are vital for us to preserve a sense of what has been, while sometimes reminding us of what persists unseen.
This exhibition consists of two distinct but complimentary installations: a photographic genealogy of three Brick Lane buildings over the years, and a fish tank containing found objects from the Thames foreshore. Both illuminate how the past is present but often out of sight, with the act of salvage in its various guises allowing us to recover bygone cultures and histories: dredged from the water, saved from the metaphorical waves of time or discovered in a folder of wrinkled newspaper clippings.
Salvage celebrates a heroic beauty in our daily devotion to saving that which is fated to decline, revelling in the enchanting process of temporarily snatching something back from the edge of the abyss.
See the film section for footage of Daniel's exhibit as well as an interview.
Salvage
Eventually, black immensity buckles,
Warped slightly at the edges by
The first blooming of an eternal recurring.
A fringe of yellow fingers
Pass through the yawning of the orchestra’s
instruments;
Comb the hairs of skin risen to meet
Their light impress.
Playfully illuminating a fleeting ridiculousness.
Excerpt from Daniel's poem Recovery
Read the whole poem here