Conditions of Engagement
A commission curated by Linsey Young (British Contemporary Art, Tate Britain), and Rut Blees Luxemburg (Senior Research Fellow, RCA), 2019.
The Royal College of Art are employing the architects Herzog & de Meuron to build their new Battersea campus.
The proposal for the commission was to print a series of excerpts of the contract between the RCA and the architects, which would be printed billboard-sized and fixed to the perimeter of the construction site. The phrases would be selected for the otherwise-invisible obligations and self-imposed conditions each party feels they have to each other and to the wider community. Of particular interest were the terms of engagement that both parties felt were acceptable and presentable to a public audience.
The proposal was accepted. Ultimately, however, only access to a generic template used by contractors was offered, which was similar but not identical to the actual contract signed off by the RCA. Nevertheless, some of the quotes proposed from this generic template for the billboard were rejected.
Photos by Elliott Mickleburgh.