Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction is legendary in its status as a sprawling traffic interchange that dominates the town's aerial landscape.  Over the years it has become a source of mockery for the city: tarnished as an eyesore of brutalism and epicentre of pollution.  However, it has also inspired a deep sense of fascination, perhaps even fondness, for some of us who have grown up in its shadow.

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Seen from below, the towering cylinders of the Spaghetti Junction take on the appearance of the monumental pillars of a Greek Temple. They provoke a sense of awe, and connect to a landscape pregnant with history and memory.  Beneath its cold steel and concrete appearance lies a world of natural wonder. It is here that the confluence of the River Tame, Aston Brook and River Rea occurs: an ancient meeting of waterways. A Victorian canal network also flows between the looming concrete columns, and nature proliferates along its towpaths and tunnels. 

 

The world beneath the Spaghetti Junction is the stuff of fairytales: fecund with dark enchantment. With this in mind, this suite of drawings reflects the wonderstruck reverence that can be felt in the presence of this mystical and exceptional place; with echoes and inspiration also drawn from other neglected corners of the urban landscape.