I applied for a job to run the bookshop and ended up making a book instead.
Having stumbled out of university two months earlier with a degree in fashion communication and a self-published magazine, this was a commission based on little more than inspiration and good faith and one that I soon learnt was in keeping with The Wapping Project’s unconventional and anarchic style.
“Do you want to make a book?” Jules Wright asked. I said yes instinctively and Jules invited me to start that day; pointing me in the direction of their vast archive stored in the office under the water tanks.
Between my commission in late 2010 and the book's publication in 2014, I fell down the Wapping rabbit hole and worked across all aspects of book production, both written and visual. I devised the book's aesthetic and, from my research into the history of Wapping and interviews with over sixty prominent artists and arts professionals (including sculptor Richard Wilson, artist Anya Gallaccio and fashion designer Roksanda Ilincic), I wrote a narrative of over 60,000 words.
