The Reading Room at 12 Claremont was the location for Bertrand Gadenne‘s rear projection L’Hibou (the Owl). Gadenne lives and works in Lille-Hellemmes and is a lecturer at École des Beaux-Arts de Dunkerque.

The rear projected installation was integrated with the urban environment, it was accessible from dusk to dawn in the Claremont/Trinity St. area of Hastings town centre, back-projected onto the Reading Room window and created a fiction which established a chance relationship between the image and viewer. This over-sized bird’s presence in the public space exercised a simultaneous power of attraction and repulsion over passers-by.