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Last chance to see Roger Hiorns' Seizure artwork at Harper Road

London SE1 website team

This weekend the Harper Road council flat which was covered with blue copper sulphate crystals by artist Roger Hiorns closes its doors for the last time.

Last chance to see Roger Hiorns' Seizure artwork at Harper Road

Early last year Southwark Council was approached by arts organisation Artangel, which was responsible for commissioning Hiorns' work, to see if the council could donate a location for the project.

Then in the summer of 2008 the artist, having been provided by the council and Leathermarket JMB with a suitable flat on an estate on Harper Road, got to work on creating what became known locally as 'the crystal house'.

Hiorns took over the derelict flat in the low-rise block between Symington House and Harper Road on the Lawson Estate. A tank was inserted into the empty flat from the floor above.

"We filled it up with 90,000 litres of boiling hot copper sulphate solution and then watched it go," Roger Hiorns told the London SE1 website last year. "That was the simplicity of it."

The flat was open to the public between September and November 2008. It reopened this summer after Hiorns was shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Hiorns was the bookies' favourite for the Turner Prize but was beaten by Richard Wright.

"It's great that this art work has been seen and appreciated by so many people in the borough, and has become such a hit," says Southwark Council chief executive Annie Shepperd.

"We were delighted to give the artist a temporary property in a block that everyone knew was going to be demolished, and we will continue to support the artist to relocate his art work."

The low-rise block is due to be demolished as part of the much-delayed programme of 'early housing' sites to replace the homes to be lost when the Heygate Estate is demolished.

Seizure is open till Sunday 3 January 11am-5pm (closed New Year's Day)

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