Roughcast

Roughcast represents an architectural intervention, the construction of a speculative facility somewhere between a storage hub, film set, and archaeological dig for human or animal remains of conspiratorial proportions. The work proposes a folkloric or mythological moment in ancient history when giants once roamed – and perhaps met an unfortunate end – set against the physical reality of a crude, veneer-thin fabrication, comfortably situated within the register of an aged museum prop.

Roughcasting describes a method in which a structure is coated with a coarse layer of pebbles, stone, grit, and mortar to conceal aged façades or shoddy workmanship while providing a protective layer – albeit improvised or impoverished. Rough-cast buildings are now seen as clumsy, undesirable, and often a nightmare to undo. The exhibition seeks to play out the intersections between myth-making, the construction of history, custodianship, and fraud.

Chris Thompson’s solo exhibition marks the culmination of his on-site residency earlier this year. Working in sculpture and installation, he creates immersive environments that appropriate, reconfigure, and antagonise materials, objects, and references, exploring speculative, anthropological questions of history, cultural memory, and material culture. In these site- and context-responsive installations, audiences and objects alike become both participants and props.