Welcome to the Barbican Centre: Silk Street Speak

Silk Street’s claim to fame is that it boasts the grand public entrance to the Barbican Arts Centre. It is “the way in” to the concert halls, theatre, cinemas, restaurants, the Curve, the Barbican Art Gallery, the Barbican Library, lakeside. It is also used by the office workers of the London Symphony Orchestra and Barbican Centre who occupy the lower floors of Frobisher Crescent and is the entrance for the residents of Frobisher Crescent who occupy the top three floors. When I approach this entrance, I know I am home. Home is where I work as an artist and the experience of living here is central to my art. Standing on Silk Street, one can take in – in one mere glance - the juxtaposition of brutalist balconies, the arched boob-like windows of Frobisher, the conservatory roof with exotic plants, the jolly display of Chimes music shop, a well-tended flower bed, security bollards, the BBC van and the daily hustle and bustle of life entering and passing the Centre. It is not so much a stage set for a narrative as a narrative in itself. Everything about the Silk Street entrance speaks. It is the exciting opening, full of anticipation, for my daily creative experience as an artist here. There is both a monumental grandeur – looking up at the architecture – and a fine sense of delicacy, colour and detail. This is Act 1 of a new creation I am imagining entitled "Silk Street Speak!".