Five friends had been up from the very early hours for on this day the feast was prepared, the table laid for the guests and the cooks, to partake in the delicacy of this wondrous event, which had been part of a long tradition in Southern Italy, on Christmas Eve, Vigilia di Natale, the banquet named Il Cenone di Vigilia.

We had been invited out of the blue, almost by accident and had not imagined what awaited us, somewhere in the darker streets of the East…of London. In front of us, a bay of greens, Plants have grown to the ceiling; exuberant flora has expanded, creating a nimbus of chlorophyll. The windows advance towards what one could only imagine as the ocean or more so, a Mediterranean port, but far below us, as we look out beyond the cliff and partially distinguish the shapes of cargos, perhaps the white sails of a ship. We are so far now from the urban hysteria of London, in this chrono-capsule where high tech fuses with retro paraphernalia. Vapour gleams on the panes, vapours rise from the stove. Never once did I think of peering into the secret heart of the kitchen. Events take on the lure of Commedia dell Arte as one chair collapses then another leaving our hosts floating in disbelief. Later a guest battles with a ladder and vegetal construct tilting over him as he brushes passed. I think of Buster Keaton’ s facial expression as a house façade falls around him, his body fitting into the doorway like a needle in a pin hole. The space gives this impression of ephemera, having been filled with treasures from the past and filtering into the precariousness of the future through the technological mod cons of modern living. A young restless pit bull greets us, the colour of his coat so similar to that of the carpet they, from a distance, would look indistinguishable…