An unassuming door leading off the courtyard in front of Peckham Rye station is a portal to a transcendent experience. Some Londoners might have had brief glimpses of the grand vaulted space you find up a flight of stars beyond the door. But most of us have been completely unaware of this former first class waiting room. It fell out of use after its Victorian heyday and has been empty — and at one stage, near derelict — since its last use as a billiard hall in the 1960s.
The room bears its scars but retains a magnificence. And few artists are better placed to exploit that than Sarah Sze. The US artist creates extraordinary, intricate sculptural environments, like vast 3D collages, that encompass the entirety of the spaces they occupy, overwhelming us in the process.
