O Complex Mass – A Concrete Liturgy

O Complex Mass is a new work by artist John Lawrence that asks how a building might dream about itself: its own purpose, history, materiality and meaning.

Developed over an extended period of site-responsive research, produced specifically for and about Dilston Gallery through an approach Lawrence refers to as ‘spatial writing’ (alluding to both Spatial Music and site-writing practices), O Complex Mass encompasses a new choral work based on a graphic score by Stephen Crowe, developed and interpreted by Musarc – the School of Art, Architecture and Design’s experimental choral assembly.

Proposed as a form of ‘concrete liturgy’ for Dilston and its extended community, O Complex Mass explores the overlapping histories of this unique building, emphasising and sharing its rare qualities with an aim to give audiences a heightened experience of the space itself.

Clare College Mission Church, better known as ‘Dilston Grove’, is the first in-situ poured concrete building in the UK. Designed by architects Sir John Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, the Grade-II listed church was built at speed in 1911 using this nascent technology to serve what was deemed, by at least one writer at the time, to be a ‘spiritually destitute district’. On completion, Dilston Grove was described as being the finest modern church in South London and for years the building ‘flourished … hosting dances, plays, local sports teams and socials.’ After the way, the church fell into disrepair, until a group of artists occupied the space as a studio, reenergising the building and starting it on its path to having the second life we know it for today – a home of ambitious, experimental artworks and projects.