Darren Almond: Journey Time
Martin Herbert
One of the most significant British artists of the past decade, Darren Almond has established a richly complex, emotive, and flexible practice which centres on time and history, often focusing on the dark traces of industrialization from the last century but firmly rooted in present-day concerns. Raised in the coalmining heartland and transport hub of northwest England, Almond became a keen train-spotter as a youth and has since made numerous works involving railways, from station-style clocks enlarged into kinetic sculptures to a profusion of text works that take as their format the embossed metal signs affixed to rolling stock. The focus of Journey Time is one of his most ambitious projects in this field and one of the milestones of his career so far: a trilogy of films devoted to remarkable trains.