Memo Mori

Death is everywhere, in this place that is to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Memo mori comprises four sequences, shot over three years and accompanied by a commentary by Iain Sinclair as well as quotes from his book, Hackney that Red Rose Empire: apart from the final Hells’ Angels sequence, a tracking shot from a canoe reveals the banks of a lifeless canal and comes to rest on two trawlers rotting out of the water; fixed shots of the huts of Manor Garden with its workers’ vegetable allotments, each built in its own style and colours mirroring the owner’s eccentricities and dreams; a circular tracking shot from a bus of abandoned industrial buildings that are doomed to demolition to make way for the future stadium. Three historical strata, three examples of a bygone industrial revolution. Nothing in these places is really ancient, but they all reflect the city’s industrial era, a part of London’s history that, without them, would fall into oblivion. (Yann Lardeau)