Commissioned by the NOW Gallery for their 10 year anniversary, Up in Smoke transforms the gallery into a vibrant cityscape that tells the story of Greenwich Peninsula through its iconic chimneys. The exhibition evokes memories of the area’s extraordinary past, and its transformation from marshland to heavy industry and more recently, to the vibrant cultural hub it is today.
A collaboration with the artist John Booth, Up in Smoke bridges the area’s long history and delves into its interwoven industrial and residential heritage, centring on chimneys as the ever-changing but constant indicator of this narrative.
The five re-imagined chimneys created for this exhibition represent the diverse history of Greenwich Peninsula, from the Powder Magazine used to store gunpowder in the 1700s to the more recent slender tubes of the modern gasworks as well as the chugging stacks of the terrace housing formerly found on Boord Street.
Visitors were invited to walk through, climb up and look in these re-imagined chimneys. They were also asked to imagine their own vision of what future chimneys might look like.
Photography by Charles Emerson