Sight Unseen
Sight Unseen was conceived as site-specific work for contemporary art gallery Tintype (formerly a watchmaker’s workshop in Hatton Garden). This solo show (May – June 2012) coincided with the launch of Lichtenstein’s book Diamond Street: the Hidden World of Hatton Garden.
Rachel spent over five years conducting a deep exploration of the Hatton Garden area, with its ancient priories, diamond workshops, underground vaults and subterranean rivers. In this exhibition she distilled her research experience to re-imagine materials and artefacts. Velvet, gold, water and found objects form a multi-layered homage to the craftspeople who operate in the Hatton Garden area: that secret ‘fold in the map’. Like an archivist, Lichtenstein collected and displayed the specialist tools and accrouterments of the jeweller’s trade, some of them used by people she knew including her late grandfather, Gedaliah Lichtenstein, a watchmaker and dealer.
