This project emerges from an ongoing fascination in large and complex institutions housed within specific buildings. This sets up an immediate analogy between three differing vessel-like structures; that of the organization/institution within the building, life within the body, and fire within the kiln.

The Energy Centre sculpture employs visual references exclusive to Nobel and Ergon House located in Whitehall, London between Smith Square and Millbank. This ‘block’-like and hugely complex building, a confusing mix of differing styles of architecture, houses a number of equally complex government departments and connected organisations.

Key Government departments within the building are the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM), the Local Government Association (LGA), and the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).

A real concern for issues concerning energy use has led me to try to decifer the information which is available about energy in this country. All the above organizations play a key role in organizing, regulating and affecting energy sources, their use, distribution and effect in this country and abroad.

This project examines the voice of this body of institutions – the Energy White Paper and other texts being published on the web. DEFRA’s contribution and influence on these texts is of particular interest as it’s concerns specifically lie in housing energy use and efficiency. This links the larger organization with the domestic world of the individual. What will be DEFRA’s effect on the way we live and the spaces we live in?

This project invited people to raku glaze their own miniature house sculptures to be fired within a miniature government department representing Nobel and Ergon House combined. Viewers were also invited to examine the information DEFRA, OFGEM, and the SDC were publishing at that time on the exhibited White Paper Wall.