“At the age of 74, Norman Swann still lives in his family home, a grand apartment in South Kensington. Now a retiree, he had served for decades as a part-time teacher of architecture at Cambridge University. However, Norman did not achieve any success as an architect himself and he never managed to realise a single one of his own visionary projects. Burdened with his cultural heritage, his snobbish family background, and a home filled with antiques and paintings collected by his ancestors – all symbols of more glamorous times – his own life today is reduced to daydreaming in a small study behind the kitchen.”
The artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have installed a visual narrative at the Victoria and Albert Museum, transforming the Textile Galleries there “into an apartment belonging to a fictional, elderly and disillusioned architect.”
For those who can’t make it across the ocean to see it…
All photos Courtesy the Artists and Victoria Miro, London
© Elmgreen & Dragset.
Photography: Anders Sune Berg
