Catherine Yass was out on her bike one day when she made a most unusual discovery. She had already journeyed far from the beaten track – down a little-known nature trail through the bowels of Barking. After passing an establishment recently called “the most isolated pub in London”, she pedalled along a “very industrial road”, reached a patch of abandoned grass, and then began to feel nauseous.
“It often really stinks around there,” says the artist, “because it’s right next to Beckton sewage works.” But the journey was worth it, because in front of her was Barking Creek Barrier, a towering concrete structure built over the River Roding in 1983 to prevent flooding in the east London borough. This structure, which became the focus of her new project, is a huge square arch with a barrier on top which is lowered once a month for maintenance purposes. “When you watch this blue blade coming down,” says Yass, “it’s like a guillotine. It seemed like a symbol for our collective guilt about the climate crisis and potential flooding.”
