About

NOW Gallery's 2024 Design Commission sees the gallery space transformed into a vibrant, colourful and interactive installation that tells the story of Greenwich Peninsula through its iconic chimneys, evoking the memories of the area’s lively past, and its transformation from a historic former marshland to the vibrant cultural hub it is today.

Up in Smoke combines the duo’s distinctive styles: Booth’s playful, colourful design aesthetic and CAN’s fresh, irreverent approach to architecture. Bridging the area’s long history, the project delves into its interwoven industrial and residential heritage, centring on chimneys as the ever-changing but constant indicator of this narrative. Despite technological advances rendering them functionally redundant, chimneys still define our collective silhouette of the city and are a staple in any child’s drawings of a house. They hold an inescapable and romantic position linking us to our personal and collective pasts.

The five re-imagined chimneys created for this exhibition represent the diverse history of the area, from the Powder magazine used to store gunpowder in the 1700s to the more recent slender tubes of the modern gasworks as well as the chugging stacks of the terrace housing formerly found on Boord Street. These five chimneys are brought to life in vivid colour and pattern, hand-painted by Booth. They tell a direct tale about Greenwich Peninsula but spark personal memories about chimneys from our past. Structures that used to fill London with smoke have been re-imagined to give NOW Gallery an extraordinary environment for all to enjoy.

Visitors are able to walk through, climb up and look in these re-imagined chimneys and also build their visions of what future chimneys may be. The vivid exhibition structure immerses visitors from all ages in the area’s rich history and allows them to learn about the past in a fun, meaningful way.