In 2020, artist Lucy McKenzie’s most ambitious permanent public commission to date transformed the iconic Modernist station Sudbury Town. McKenzie’s work drew on historic advertisements of the inter-war period, held in the London Transport Museum archive. In April 2022, Lucy was joined by Fiona Orsini, Curator of RIBA Drawings & Archives Collections, to discuss how her Art on the Underground commission interacts with the history and architecture of the station, designed by Charles Holden in 1931.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to watch a recording of the event.
About the panellists
Lucy McKenzie (born Glasgow 1977, lives Brussels) is a visual artist whose installations explore the interplay between painting, style and value. She has exhibited her work around the world, including solo shows at Tate Britain, London in 2003, MoMA, New York in 2008, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 2013 and Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice in 2017, and, together with designer Beca Lipscombe, produced fashion collections under the name Atelier E.B. Their exhibition, Atelier E.B: Passer-by, was staged at Serpentine, London in 2018, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris in 2019 and Garage, Moscow in 2020. In 2020 and 2021, McKenzie was the subject of a major touring exhibition held at Museum Brandhorst, Munich and Tate Liverpool.
Fiona Orsini is Curator at the RIBA Drawings & Archives Collections, based at the V&A. She has worked for the Royal Institute of British Architects since April 2006 and has curated a number of exhibitions at the V&A including Underground Journeys: Charles Holden’s designs for London Transport, Mind Over Matter: Contemporary British Engineering (with V&A colleagues Olivia Horsfall Turner & Anna White) and most recently Into the Blue: the origins and revival of pools, swimming baths and lidos (co-curated with RIBA colleague Susan Pugh), as well as contributing to V&A public programmes with presentations on ‘Charles Holden and 55 Broadway’ and ‘Metroland and Art Deco in the Suburbs’. She is currently co-authoring a book on the history of architectural drawings.