Never the Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts), Camden Arts Centre

Simon Starling’s wonderfully eccentric exhibition Never the Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts) will inevitably mean more to those who have visited the Camden Arts Centre regularly over the years. Places gradually acquire a patina of memories that accumulate layer on layer and infiltrate one’s perceptions in the present moment. Travelling round London, I encounter my past at every corner – the Slade where I spent many hours drinking coffee before being gripped with ambition to become an artist, University College Hospital where I gave birth, the house where I discovered how hard it is to be an adult, the doorstep on which a former lover confronted a future one, and so on.

Simon Starling’s wonderfully eccentric exhibition Never the Same River (Possible Futures, Probable Pasts) will inevitably mean more to those who have visited the Camden Arts Centre regularly over the years. Places gradually acquire a patina of memories that accumulate layer on layer and infiltrate one’s perceptions in the present moment. Travelling round London, I encounter my past at every corner – the Slade where I spent many hours drinking coffee before being gripped with ambition to become an artist, University College Hospital where I gave birth, the house where I discovered how hard it is to be an adult, the doorstep on which a former lover confronted a future one, and so on.