Somerset House Studios

Eloise Hawser presents Anabasis to Dora, a programme of multi-site visits based on research into unusual and contested spaces, museums and collections around the UK. The series formed the background to her current exhibition By the deep, by the mark at Somerset House, until 22 April. The podcast follows Eloise on an Anabasis to Dora tour exploring London’s infrastructure with a bus trip to Beckton sewage treatment works and Crossness via Thamesmead. These waste disposal and transport sites form the functional backbone of the city, interconnected by largely unseen subterranean systems, moving fluids, waste and data around in a constant, necessary flow. Beckton marks the confluence of London’s northern and southern outfall sewers. The 260-acre site has been home to a treatment works for a century, and displays a rare array of different architectural tropes in its myriad buildings and structures. It also plays host to wildlife, a collection of Brutalist incinerators, a cylindrical pond, and all with an une