China Power Station was an exhibition of Chinese contemporary art, architecture and sound at the iconic Battersea Power Station. Chinese artists and architects involved included Cao Fei, Yang Fudong and Kan Xuon. Work mainly consisted of sound and moving image as well some sculptural pieces. One installation which I really liked was by Gu Dexin who had covered a wall with apples, which were slowly decaying. As I was visiting on one of the final days of the five week exhibition the smell was really sweet and overpowering. The exhibition provided a unique opportunity to visit Battersea Power Station before it begins redevelopment. It has never been open to the public before and was far more derelict than I had imagined, with its bare steel frame reinforced with brickwork from the outside. The power station once generated twenty percent of London’s electricity, and after closing in 1983 it has become the largest city centre brownfield site in Europe. It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, also the architect for the power station at Bankside which is now the Tate Modern and the designer of the British phone box.
The future of the power station will be transformation by Parkview International into a new cultural, entertainment and events centre, which I really hope to track the progress of.
www.thepowerstation.co.uk
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