Got Damp: Avril Corroon

16 Mar-30 Apr 2023

Got Damp, 2023, Installation and film. Credit: Tom Carter

Overview

Got Damp  is an installation by Irish artist Avril Corroon that explores damp as ‘a crisis of nature in the home’ and the experience of the ‘precariat’ within contemporary Britain. The project was commissioned by TACO! as part of its work with communities across South East London.

Got Damp was developed over 2 years of research into living conditions as a galvanising issue for communities in exercising their political voice. At the heart of this research has been an ongoing exchange with 55 households from London and Dublin.  Avril provided energy efficient dehumidifiers and support to manage damp, whilst households contributed experiences, ideas and collected their damp as a material for an artwork.  

Avril’s enquiry sets out to frame damp as an entity with agency and the sculptural potential to represent the socio-economic conditions and structures that created it.  The resulting artwork consists of an installed structure,  presented within the gallery. Modelled on the footprint of a domestic living space, the structure is constructed from double skinned clear plastic walls. ‘Damp’ collected by participating households and held in jerry cans and barrels is pumped and filtered to run down the inside of the perspex walls.  

Central to the installation is a 30min film made by the artist that documents the lived experience of households who live with damp in their homes.  Their testimony is juxtaposed with thermal imagery and shots of the affects of damp on the fabric of buildings. Individuals describe the physicality of damp, their corporeal relationship to it, how damp impacts on their environment, health and their possessions. Others discuss their attempts to control damp or the lack of support from their landlord.

The title Got Damp refers to an historic incident in Thamesmead. In 1971 residents collectively organised to highlight the issue of damp and water seepage in their recently built modern prefab homes. A visiting MP with delegates from the GLC was greeted by posters in the windows of residents simply stating ‘I’ve got damp’. The impact of such a large volume of protest posters displayed in windows captured the scale of the problem and quickly led to remedial work being carried out by the GLC.

Got Damp is funded by Arts Council England and the Arts Council of Ireland.

Artists