B(l)ackroom

Info

• Title : B(l)ackroom

• Year : 2026 – Ongoing

• Medium : Multimedia installation – sound, distilled spirit, moving image, projected text, scent, books, vinyl records, furniture and architectural intervention

• Duration : Variable.

Details

B(l)ackroom is a multisensory installation exploring processes of distillation, reduction, classification and consumption. Developed from Sufferhead Original, the project begins with a material transformation: the black imperial stout at the centre of the earlier work is distilled into Sufferhead Gin, turning an opaque, dark liquid into a clear spirit.

This act of distillation becomes both the material and conceptual starting point of the installation. Distillation separates, concentrates and transforms. Something complex is broken down, certain elements retained while others disappear, and what remains emerges in another form. B(l)ackroom extends this process beyond alcohol to consider the ways histories, cultures, identities and people can similarly be reduced into categories, descriptions and systems of knowledge.

The title itself holds several meanings in tension. The “backroom” suggests a space removed from immediate public view: semi-private, controlled and accessible on particular terms. The insertion of (l) produces blackroom, introducing questions of Blackness, darkness, visibility and opacity. Rather than offering complete transparency, the installation creates a space in which some things are revealed while others remain deliberately resistant to easy reading.

Sufferhead Gin occupies a central but unstable position within this environment. Bottles may be visible yet inaccessible, shifting the spirit away from the familiar language of hospitality and consumption. Gin also carries its own historical entanglements with botanical classification, colonial trade, extraction and the movement of plants and commodities across territories. Within B(l)ackroom, drinking and distillation therefore become part of a wider enquiry into how materials and histories are transformed as they circulate.

Projected language moves through the space in fragments. Words and phrases associated with migration, colonial histories, bureaucracy and classification appear, disappear and recombine, reducing complex histories into the kinds of terms through which people and experiences are often named, processed and organised.

In counterpoint to this compression is an archive of books and vinyl records. Where projected language fragments and categorises, the archive retains duration, contradiction, voice and context. Visitors are invited to spend time listening and reading, allowing different histories and perspectives to coexist without being resolved into a single narrative.

Sound is embedded within the architecture of the installation, emerging from concealed sources and the listening environment itself. Scent introduces another, less visible register: something that disperses beyond fixed boundaries, entering and leaving the space without being fully contained. Together, sound, scent, text, objects and the distilled spirit create an environment that moves between what can be seen and what remains partially obscured.

Rather than presenting distillation as a metaphor with a single meaning, B(l)ackroom allows the process to operate across several registers: material transformation, historical extraction, linguistic reduction, cultural classification and bodily consumption. What enters the installation does not necessarily leave in the same form.

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