It Ends Here

Big budget blockbuster movies are usually associated with glitz, glamour and light, rather than dark, damp and slightly scary underground spaces.

Idiocy Walks With Wisdom
Idiocy Walks With Wisdom

However, to mark the launch of the new Planet of the Apes film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, artist Martin Firrell has created an installation in that rather unglamorous caverns lurking beneath London’s Waterloo station.

The installation, entitled It Ends Here, aims to explore some of the ideas highlighted in the Planet of the Apes franchise, including cohabitation, peace and war.

Abuse Begets Abuse
Abuse Begets Abuse

The space itself is superb – all echoey darkness and puddles and shadows. Within this, Firrell has taken over five large rooms, filling them with huge text pieces brought to life with light, projections and speakers dotted around the space, playing out a series of found sounds compiled by Firrell.

The Brutality room
The Brutality room

The overall ambience looks to put visitors’ minds ‘in a state of alert’, says Dr Melanie Vandenbrouck, curatorial advisor on the project.

Firrell says, ‘With It Ends Here, my intention was to explore the deeper value of Planet of the Apes’ particular corner of pop culture, locating truths that cast light on our attempts to live humanely in an over-crowded and tension-filled world.

‘I have an interest in popular culture as a mass disseminator of good ideas – drawing attention to the deeper value in popular culture and encouraging people to look at it with a greater appreciation of its possible meaning’.

Martin Firrell, It Ends Here, will be in place on 10, 11  and 12 July at The Vaults, Leake Street, London SE1 7NN

 

 

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