Andrew SABIN, Viewing Platform (2006). Merton (London)

© andrew sabin

The Mead Path at the confluence of the Rivers Wandle and Graveney, Merton, South London.
The Wandle is an invisible river. It is not that it is underground or built over, more that, in the past, it has been written out of the script by the three London Boroughs it flows through. It should be one of London's treasures. It has a path running next to it that will take you off road from the Epsom Downs to the heart of London. In walking that path the traveller will experience a wonderful compression of urban and rural life.
The ambition of the Wandle Trail art programme is to turn the whole river into a machine for looking. The rules for these machines are that the participant should always know that they are in it and that they are being asked to stop and look. The argument is that the Wandle needs no importation of things to see, it is all there, but it needs to acquire the tools both to seen and encourage seeing.
This viewing platform snakes its way across the River Graveny and pushes out over the Wandle to allow a up and down both rivers. From the platform allotments, factories, rubbish, a Victorian bridge, herons and kingfishers, cracked flood defences, barbed wire, a nature reserve can all be seen compressed into one wonderful vista.
Commissioned by Groundwork Merton.