Heidi Locher - Hotel Kalifornia

Renowned architect, Heidi Locher has designed some of the most talked-about private houses in London for a distinguished list of clients as well as public buildings such as Soho Theatre in Greek Street and the Jerwood Space in Southwark. Concurrently, Locher has slowly been carving a reputation in the art world and her upcoming solo show places her firmly on the art map.

Hotel Kalifornia brings together the elements of Locher’s interdisciplinary practice; through the collision of the different facets of her fine art and architectural practices she creates her own Air Architecture. Locher’s intuitive concerns with intensity and atmosphere are a common thread throughout her work. The exhibition explores ideas of disengagement that occur away from one’s home. Hotel Kalifornia (a title which recalls the famous Eagles’ song) looks at the geography of loneliness and the heightened intensity of our inner landscape promulgated by such disengagement and absence.

Alongside projections and photographs, the exhibition centres on a short film, exploring the notion of hidden memories and deep personal anguish. It is a haunting investigation into moments of change that leave mental scars hidden deep within the subconscious. The hotel, a container in which to live, houses the traces of these events and becomes a vessel for these memories. Filmed within a modern hotel room (created by Locher), it has three sections each focusing on one of the three stages of a woman’s life but, poignantly, all the roles are played by the same actress. The terrible moment of change is seen through the eyes of the child. The teenager suffers the consequences of the trauma while the adult experiences the ultimate cathartic release that, in turn, brings redemption. The slow-motion footage, stylised white lighting and penetrating detail, heighten the physical and emotional aspects creating a ghost-like and claustrophobic atmosphere.

The design of the immersive exhibition channels the mood of a hotel with suggested corridors and doors. Having been brought up in a hotel, the theme carries significant emotional sensibilities for Locher who says: “Hotels are like a musical instrument to me, they have a certain kind of rhythm. I can read them and the people in them and hear their inner workings. I feel I can pick up the vibrations, the intensity and the mood. Hotels have a heightened frequency where tensions lurk and rituals are acted out in an extreme atmosphere which is not really like everyday life.”