To Spoor a Stockroom

Stella Scott

Welbeck Street Car Park, London, 2019

Stella Scott, To Spoor a Stockroom, 2019. Single-channel video, colour, sound, 7 min

To Spoor a Stockroom confronts the sanitised future and fetishisation of space in central London. In a condemned consumer environment, the spectre of desire flickers on.

Created during the last days of Welbeck Street Car Park before its controversial demolition, the film reveals a hidden side of the brutalist landmark. The basement level was originally used by Debenhams as cold storage for fur. Gutted of goods and rails, the exposed walls carry graffiti expressing lust and frustration, left by stockroom workers over decades. One last deep clean sees the architectural skin sloughed and rubbed, releasing memories that bubble and sublimate.

Starring Florence Keith-Roach alongside Monika Blaszczak & Mateo Dupleich Rozo, who explore the intense atmosphere and history of this subterranean space and its effect on the body in a specially devised piece of choreography. The film features an installation by Katharina Dubbick, capturing the moment of exhaustion after a climax.

The voiceover concept is based on the historic graffiti, which was transcribed and recorded with Debenhams staff. This fragmented chorus of young voices marks a time of anxiety on the high street, with the passing of twentieth-century modes of consumerism. Just as the concrete facade is set to be torn down to make way for a hotel, the employees face an uncertain future as the department store goes into administration. Anchored in a documentary approach, the promise of narrative supports a journey into a space that’s about to disappear.

Spent

As Welbeck Street Car Park neared demolition in March 2019, images appeared temporarily on the boarded up doors and windows at street level. Spent captures commuters passing by, oblivious. It marks a time of uncertainty over public space in central London, with consumer and working practices evaporating online.