Saint Etienne - sugarhouse lane, 2006

"There is history aplenty in the Lower Lea Valley, for all the neglect and decay that now characterises the landscape. The street names alone are steeped in it: Pudding Mill Lane, Sugarhouse Lane and Waterworks River. The building that housed the Bryant and May match factory, where the match girls famously went on strike and begat the Labour Movement, still stands in nearby Bow. Around the corner on Wallis Road, a tiny plaque stuck absurdly high on a brick wall announces with little fanfare that plastic was invented here. As Bob Stanley puts it: 'Right here, in Hackney Wick, they invented the future.' Elsewhere, nature has started to take over again, with algae and moss creeping over concrete and steel."