Unstable Structures

‘Unstable Structures’ is a site-responsive exhibition of new sculptural and photographic work by artist and architect Veronika Desova. The exhibition also includes a collaborative artwork created with artist Aga Paulina Młyńczak. Installed in the former Court Room at Oxford House in Glasgow, the exhibition explores instability—physical, social, and emotional—as both a material condition and a metaphor for our times.

Set against the backdrop of Glasgow’s shifting urban fabric—shaped by deindustrialisation, demolition, and community resistance—the exhibition reflects on the fragility of both built and social systems. It asks how reciprocal care might emerge when conventional structures no longer hold. Responding to the Architecture Fringe 2025 provocation, Reciprocity: Architectures of Exchange, the work proposes a living, adaptive practice—one that listens, adjusts, and allows space for reconfiguration.

The space itself, with its leaking ceiling, rotting rafters, and crumbling plaster, acts as a protagonist. Rather than masking the signs of deterioration, the exhibition engages them directly. Sculptural forms—improvised from ready-made architectural fragments—respond to the listed building’s roof leak problems which led to the partial collapse of the ceiling.

At the centre of the exhibition is a large-scale sculptural installation ‘Fixing the Leak’ (2025) composed of nine suspended steel gutter elements, progressively arranged to channel a continuous drip of petrichor-scented ‘leak’ water. Infused with perfume compounds such as geosmin, vetiver, and algenone, the liquid mimics the smell of rain water and timber decay. Rhythmically dripping from the top to bottom of the space, the liquid is transferred into a cast concrete container atop a mirrored pedestal, transforming a functional exterior drainage system into a surreal ‘management’ leakage strategy, a humoristic gesture of care. Microphones embedded in the sculpture capture the sound of dripping and explore the musical qualities locked away in the rhythms of water on steel and mirror through a responsive sound composition created by artist Aga Paulina Młynczak. Stemming from Młynczak’s long standing artistic research on rain, the sound was mapped and tuned resulting in an ambient composition – a live “drip symphony” that turns architectural failure into an instrument.

Surrounding this work are analog and digital photographic pieces that explore instability in the wider urban context. These include images of Glasgow’s Wyndford Towers during demolition and fragments of movement, decay and collapse. Failed flexural strength concrete tests (Stress Tests, 2025), installed in the space, complement the photography. These pieces are made through applying increasing pressure until they break; flexural strength signifies the highest stress experienced within the material at its moment of rupture.

Upon arrival and exit, the visitor is met with a pipework composition (Chandelier in Weathered Ship-building Pink, 2025) replacing the chandelier. Echoing the building’s pink exterior, it reveals its hidden services in a playful, theatrical composition suspended in space. This work exposes the poetic potential of infrastructure when removed from utility.