A note on : Ed Hadfield's exhibition opening chat

I met Ed Hadfield years ago and we’ve stayed in contact, with Ed being one of the most interesting poets working with public art that I know. His work’s background is in an area very different from my own, and its through my awareness of Ed’s work that I’ve slowly built up proper knowledge of those I’d see as poets who are known as text artists like ruscha, weiner, holzer, baldessari et al.

Ed has a year long exhibition / installation at Cable Depot, run generously by Iavor Lubomirov https://cable-depot.com/About, and asked me to pop down to talk with him about it, for a chat on instagram live, because he couldn’t do a normal opening due to the pandemic.

I had a really magic time going down to woolwich dockyards on a friday night, with gale force winds battering in as i walked down the thames path and emerging into an industrial estate to discover this incredible intimate gallery, surrounded by mechanics and warehouses. The video here shows Ed and I’s chat, which is a bit wind affected, but captures a moment - its almost a performance in itself, trying to talk in the gusts as the light fades - and its worth listening to to glean Ed’s sincere and intelligent insight into his piece, which is admirably elegant. Ed’s website is here too https://edhadfield.co.uk/wall-mural/