A Grade II-listed building of Shoreditch Town Hall will be the focus of a new site specific art exhibition in October this year. This is a group show called ‘Heart of Glass’ and will present 25 established and emerging artists selected by art-world luminaries and will include new works by ArtLab artist Richard Ducker.

Artists have submitted work in response to the eerie atmosphere of the space. The Town Hall, build by Caesar Augustus Long in 1866, was originally built as a Vestry Hall for Shoreditch, and later became infamous of being a site of the inquest into Jack the Ripper ‘s last killing. Richard Ducker produced for the show a sculpture titled ‘Burden of Dreams’ (illustrated). Richard often uses in his works the objects of daily life: a hoover, a wire, a suitcase, a ladder. For him they represent as silent witnesses to human existence. ‘Burden of Dreams’ consists of a gramophone, fabricated from cement attached to a trolley. Critics in the past have seen cement as a metaphor in art for death. In ‘Burden of Dreams,’ however, there is also a nostalgic and slightly humorous tone.

Patrizia di Bello, Profess at School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media describes artist’s work as ‘emotionally evocative without ever telling a clear story, affecting without being obvious. With simple formal means, they excavate fears, anxieties and desires associated with the most visceral of physical sensations; attraction and repulsion, pleasure and pain, need and self-sufficiency.’