An end flat in a condemned housing estate in Elephant & Castle was transformed into an electric blue encrusted Aladdin's Cave of copper sulphate crystals that coated every surface.

After reinforcing the walls and ceiling and covering them in plastic sheeting, 75,000 litres of a copper sulphate solution was poured in from a hole in the ceiling. After a few weeks the temperature of the solution fell and the crystals began to grow. The remaining liquid was pumped back out and sent for special chemical recycling.SeizureRoger HiornsThe scale and production of “Seizure” was ambitious, and being surrounded by blue crystals was both mesmerising and intimidating at the same time, a timeless experience that has since been transferred to Yorkshire Sculpture Park en masse as the housing estate was shortly demolished.

I didn't know much about Roger Hiorns prior to seeing this installation, but had heard of his encrusted engines from a few years prior - equally mesmerising, a product of a chemical process transforming an industrially intricate machine into what looked like stange giant sweets. The only warning being the electric blue colour; had they been strawberry or lemon coloured they might have been lickable.

This was something else altogether. You walk within and breath among the larger alien-looking crystals that have grown on the walls and ceiling. What governs how these structures grow? Unseen processes and logic bring up more questions. We can answer the what and how with science, but the why remains elusive.

Superimposed into a domestic dwelling - the intimate spaces we shelter within - there is a sense of a silent invasion, but the physical process has been bent to our forms, our overall geometries, and the fragility of both the crystals and the condemned building - with the embedded memories of the the lives that once existed within them - make it a link between transient and permanent, nature and artifice, arbitraryness and precision.

A beautiful work.

In his own words:

“Seizure was a surreal kind of environment. There is an accretion and a level of exaggeration to do with materials, and that exaggeration took people somewhere else. It was a new zone of experience that allowed people to unlock another way of thinking and another way of moving into the future.”

The video below showcases more of the process and thinking behind the installation as well as how it was transported and bedded into its current home in Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

A short film exploring Roger Hiorns, Seizure 2008/2013 and documenting the ambitious project to transpose it to Yorkshire Sculpture Park.Arts Council Collection

More information on its creation can be found on the Arts Council and Artangel sites.

A direct link to the Artangel video interview is here.

And more information on what Roger Hiorns is up to now is here.