Tag Archives: artangel

A collection of collectors’ collections in the heart of Croydon

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COLLECTING IS A HOBBY, which is often very personal. People devote much of their spare time collecting all manner of things, from used beer cans to Persian carpets. What often seems to be a pointless collection of junk to most people, is an extremely important treasure to the collector. We used to visit a pub in Wadebridge (Cornwall), which has now changed owners. It used to contain about 300 working clocks. I asked the former owner, now sadly deceased, why there were so many clocks. She replied that some people have children, but she had clocks. Her collection was as important to her as children are to their parents. Something like this must be true for those who have made collecting their hobby, but I hope that their children (if any) are also highly valued by them.

Today, the 26th of July 2024, we travelled to Croydon to see an art installation, “Come as you really are”, created by the artist Hetain Patel (born 1980 in Bolton, UK), whose parents are British Gujaratis. The art show is being held until the 20th of October 2024 in what was once Grants department store, which opened in 1895 and finally closed in 1987. A man outside the building stopped us, and told us that he remembered being taken to Grants by his grandmother, who bought sewing materials there. Part of the former shop became a Wetherspoons pub called the Milan Bar, which ceased trading in 2022. The disused bar, which occupies two floors – ground and basement – is the site of Hetain’s literally incredible artwork (for want of a better word).

What Hetain has created and curated is a display of passionate collectors’ collections alongside a selection of his own creations (including a carpet covered car and a short video). Wandering around the former Wetherspoons pub is a cross between entering a dream world and the best junk shop you have ever seen. The experience is both extraordinary and visually amazing. The ‘show’ has been arranged under the auspices of Artangel, whose website (https://artangel.org.uk/project/come-as-you-really-are/)  explained:

“The project began with a nationwide call-out inviting members of the public to share the activity to which they dedicate their spare time. Standing shoulder to shoulder with handmade submissions by hobbyists are new and existing works by Patel.”

The website further noted:

“Come As You Really Are by Hetain Patel features thousands of objects created, modified or collected by hobbyists across the UK, shown alongside a new artist film. Each hobby represents a decision to commit valuable time to living life on one’s own terms in a society dominated by consumerism.”

So, Hetain has made a collection of hobbyist collectors’ arrangements of their own collections, and distributed them artfully within the rooms of the former Milan Bar pub. The result has to be seen to be believed and to be enjoyed properly. As the website concluded:

“Come As You Really Are presents a variety of hobbies that showcase an individual’s freedom of expression and ingenuity, and in doing so broadens our perception of who gets to be called creative and where the impulse to create stems from. At the heart of this project is a nationwide community of people whose labours of love are a lens through which the artist presents an alternative portrait of the UK.”

We visited the ‘show’ from Kensington, but Artangel hopes that the majority of visitors will be from Croydon and its environs. They are aiming to bring art to the people. It is hoped that similar events will be held at various places all over the UK during the next few months.

After Armageddon? An art installation

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ORFORD NESS IS a desolate strip of land on the Suffolk coast. Separated from the rest of the county by the lower reaches of the River Alde, it was used for testing military technology during much of the 20th century. While it was in the hands of the military, it was strictly out of bounds for everyone except those who were authorised to be there. It was a highly secret military area, more about which I plan to write soon.


In the early 1990s, the Ness was handed over to the National Trust, who developed it and the decaying remains of the military establishment as a visitor attraction and nature reserve.
This Summer (2021), an organisation called Artangel, who “…collaborate with artists who defy boundaries to give form to extraordinary ideas,” (www.artangel.org.uk/about_us/), have placed several intriguing art installations on Orford Ness. One of these, which I particularly liked, is called “The Residents”. It was created by Tatiana Trouvé, who was born in Calabria and grew up in Dakar, Senegal.


Her installation is housed in a concrete structure half buried in shingle and called Lab 1. It was in this bunker, built in the 1960s, that detonators for Britain’s atomic bombs were tested for their resistance to vibration and other forces that might set off detonators at inappropriate times, for example, when being carried in aircraft.


Like most of the rest of the deserted military establishment on Orford Ness, Trouvé’s collection of objects in the disused, dilapidated bunker, creates an intense feeling of a post-Armageddon world. The artist populates the space with a variety of objects, such as suitcases, cloth bags, books, quilted mattresses and rugs, and a transistor radio. All of these objects look as if they have been discarded by people fleeing an horrific disaster. All of them are painted to look life-like, but none of them are real; they are all cast in either aluminium or bronze. This is also the case for the life-like seashells attached to the gate through which the observer looks at this created scene of despair.


Surrounded by acres of shingle covered with distorted, rusting fragments of metal and discarded lumps of concrete, the installation housed within Lab 1 gave me the feeling that I was being given a glimpse of what I hope never to experience: the world following a nuclear catastrophe.